PG&E moving headquarters to Oakland, ending close ties to San Francisco since Gold Rush
PG&E Corp. said Monday it’s moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Oakland, severing ties with the city it’s called home since the Gold Rush.
The utility said the relocation will help reduce costs and is part of its effort to start fresh after a string of deadly wildfires ruined the company’s reputation and landed it in bankruptcy. PG&E hopes to gain final approval for its bankruptcy plan within days and said the real estate savings will be passed on to customers, along with the profits from the sale of its three-building headquarters complex near the Embarcadero.
“Our new Oakland headquarters will be significantly more cost-effective, is better suited to the needs of our business, and is a critical part of fulfilling our commitment to operate in a fiscally responsible way that will enable us to achieve our operational and safety goals,” said Bill Smith, who is taking over June 30 as interim chief executive.
PG&E said the move to the 900,000-square-foot, 28-story Kaiser Center office tower — at 300 Lakeside Drive on Lake Merritt in Oakland — will be implemented in phases and will be complete in 2023. The headquarters building will go on the market once PG&E is finished with its bankruptcy case. Once moved in, the company could option to buy the Lakeside property for $892 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
PG&E’s history began in 1852, with the founding of the San Francisco Gas Company. In 1905, it merged with California Electric Light to form Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The company’s 17-story building at 245 Market St., built in the 1920s, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Lately, though, relations between San Francisco and PG&E have been strained. Last fall, the city offered $2.5 billion for PG&E’s electricity operations in the city, a bid that was soundly rejected.
The company filed for bankruptcy two months after a faulty transmission tower sparked the Camp Fire in Butte County in November 2018. The fire killed 85 people, destroyed much of the town of Paradise, and was the latest in a string of big fires blamed on PG&E.
PG&E has secured approval for its bankruptcy plan from Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Public Utilities Commission. Thousands of wildfire victims have voted to approve a $13.5 billion payout plan to compensate them for losses not covered by insurance.
However, the company still needs U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali to sign off on the plan by June 30. Otherwise, state law says the company won’t be eligible to participate in a $21 billion insurance pool overseen by the state to buffer California’s big utilities from liabilities from future wildfires. The pool is to be jointly financed by ratepayers and shareholders.
This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 5:14 PM with the headline "PG&E moving headquarters to Oakland, ending close ties to San Francisco since Gold Rush."