Evidence / 3 engagements
Index/Case Studies
Decisions under
real conditions.
Three engagements, three different questions — renew or replace, finance or pay cash, lease or own. Each one is presented the way we analyzed it: the numbers, the options we ruled out, and the recommendation that followed.
Client, building and personnel names have been withheld throughout, as a matter of First Porter's own policy; the analysis, figures and outcomes are as delivered.
— Three engagements
Different questions, the same discipline applied
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01
Portfolio-wide renewal strategy
Sequencing capital renewal across seven research campuses with one shared framework.
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02
Recovering a retrofit's business case
Rebuilding a deep energy retrofit's financing after rates roughly tripled mid-project.
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03
Lease, renew, or buy
Weighing a purchase option against renewal for a 1,000-employee legislative accommodation.
01 Federal science & research portfolio · seven campuses
Portfolio-wide renewal strategy
The challenge
A federal science agency needed a defensible way to sequence capital renewal across seven research campuses without a shared decision framework. Each site had its own facility condition data, its own maintenance backlog, and its own mix of primary research buildings, smaller outbuildings, and site infrastructure — with no consistent basis for comparing a dollar spent at one campus against a dollar spent at another.
Our approach
We built a single decision framework and applied it uniformly: four intervention strategies — continue routine renewal, consolidate five years of work into one program, consolidate ten years into one program, or replace the asset outright — tested against every asset group at every campus. That produced 76 distinct scenarios, each run through a 25-year discounted cash-flow model in DOME™, then stress-tested with Monte Carlo risk simulation to see whether the ranking of options held up once risk was priced in.
What the analysis showed
Bundling a decade of scheduled renewal into a single delivered program was, with striking consistency, the lowest risk-adjusted-cost path — cheaper than business as usual in the near term, and far cheaper than full replacement. The saving came from two compounding effects: contractor economies of scale from delivering years of work as one program, and avoiding years of cost escalation by not waiting. Risk simulation rarely changed the ranking — in only one case did the lowest-cost option before risk stop being the lowest-cost option after it, an asset infrastructure group old enough that replacement's higher residual value finally outweighed its higher upfront cost.
Outcome: a portfolio-wide capital plan the client could defend campus by campus, asset by asset — with the ten-year consolidated program recommended as the sole financially viable path at nine of the twenty asset groups assessed, and included among the viable options at ten more.
Key figures
- 76 scenarios modelled
- 25-year horizon
- Monte Carlo risk simulation
02 Federal office building · deep energy retrofit
Recovering a retrofit's business case
The challenge
A major building retrofit — new HVAC, lighting, and water systems, self-financed against guaranteed energy savings under a performance contract — ran into three problems at once mid-construction: unforeseen hazardous material abatement, a design conflict with an unrelated project that forced a late relocation of major equipment, and a lock-in of construction financing at a moment when interest rates had roughly tripled since the project was approved. Left on its original financing structure, the project's loan repayment period alone would stretch past twenty years, on top of construction delays that had already pushed the schedule out by two years.
Our approach
We rebuilt the business case from the ground up rather than patching it: reconciled exactly what had changed in construction scope and cost, then modelled every financing structure still available to the client — continuing with debt secured against forecast energy savings, several partial capital-contribution scenarios, and a full upfront payout — against a common risk-adjusted present-value basis. As a check on the recommendation, we also priced out terminating the contract entirely, to confirm that finishing the project was genuinely the cheaper path.
What the analysis showed
Paying the remaining project cost in full, rather than continuing to finance it, was the clear outcome once compared on a risk-adjusted basis — a decision that had not been available at the original approval, when interest rates made financing the more attractive choice. Terminating the contract early was ruled out too: it would have cost more than finishing.
Outcome: a recommendation to convert to a full capital payout, cutting close to $15 million from the project's risk-adjusted present-value cost compared with staying on the original financing structure, and shortening the project's remaining timeline by more than six years by eliminating a decade-plus loan repayment period.
Key figures
- ~6x rise in financing rates
- ~$15M risk-adjusted saving
- 6+ years shorter timeline
03 Legislative office accommodation · ~1,000 employees, 20,000+ m²
Lease, renew, or buy
The challenge
A long-standing tenant's lease was approaching expiry, with only a single five-year renewal contractually guaranteed beyond that — well short of the 25 years of accommodation the client needed to plan around. The lease also carried an option to purchase the building outright at fair market value, on a fixed notification timeline that was closing.
Our approach
We screened five strategic options — renew the lease, exercise the purchase option, run a competitive lease tender, pursue a build-to-lease arrangement, or acquire a different existing asset — against hard constraints of timeline, location, size and security, narrowing the field to three genuinely viable paths. Because a lease and a purchase carry fundamentally different risk profiles — a landlord absorbs ownership risk under a lease; the client would absorb it directly under a purchase — we didn't compare them on cost alone. We quantified the retained risk of ownership (market value movement, future recapitalization, eventual disposal) deliberately conservatively, on the assumption that anything that could go wrong, would, and added that cost back in before comparing the options.
What the analysis showed
Even fully loaded with that conservative ownership risk allowance, purchasing was substantially cheaper than either leasing path — and the gap widened the further out the comparison ran.
Outcome: a recommendation to exercise the purchase option, calculated to save roughly $69 million in present-value terms over a 25-year horizon compared with renewing the lease, and more than $130 million over 50 years. The client proceeded to exercise the option at the appraised fair market value.
Key figures
- 5 options screened to 3
- 25- & 50-year comparison
- ~$69M–$130M PV savings