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Johnson’s two-decade-plus tenure at the GSA positions Partners to serve a $5.7B national market while leveraging its platform to provide additional client opportunities

Atlanta, GA – May 13, 2026 – Partners Real Estate—a private partnership-led fully-integrated commercial real estate firm—today announced the launch of its Federal Leasing practice and the appointment of Charlie Johnson as Executive Vice President and Head of Federal Leasing.

Charlie Johnson brings nearly 25 years of experience inside the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service, where he served as a Senior Leasing Program Manager leading national programs that directly shaped GSA’s leasing operations across its entire portfolio of over 7,300 leases providing more than 171 million rentable square feet and $5.8 billion in annual rent.  At the time of his departure, Mr. Johnson was the program manager overseeing an expansive program to guide GSA’s leasing program into the next era.

During his tenure, Mr. Johnson oversaw the Lease Acquisition Officer program where he worked with the regional officers across the country on the most complex and significant issues facing the lease portfolio. He is widely recognized as the nation’s foremost expert on expedited and emergency federal leasing, having created the disaster leasing program within GSA that guided the agency’s response to the costliest hurricane season in U.S. history. One of a rare few to have written multiple chapters of the GSA Leasing Desk Guide — the official federal leasing playbook — Mr. Johnson has also created multiple lease acquisition models and wrote significant portions of the lease language now used nationwide.  His work spans the entire portfolio from his creation of the Simplified Lease Acquisition Model for GSA’s smaller leases to developing the definitive national training on Best Value Trade-Off leasing, the methodology used on GSA’s largest and most complex procurements.

Mr. Johnson and his team will offer the following services:

• Contract Audits: Expert level auditing of your existing contract to identify both retroactive and proactive opportunities to increase revenue, reduce expenses, and maximize the financial return on your government lease contract.
• Full-Service Advisory: Consulting for government lessors by a team of former senior LCOs and national level experts.
• Expert Representation: Guiding landlords through new leases, succeeding leases, renewals, modifications, and compliance obligations.
• Heavy GSA expertise: A team of former GSA leasing experts with decades worth of full-time GSA experience.
• Consultant partner service model: Providing services for owners who lease only a portion of their building to GSA in a way that works with the existing building representation.

“The timing is significant. More than half of the GSA’s 7,300 leases are set to expire over the next five years, creating a critical window for landlords to optimize their contracts. Most, however, lack the specialized knowledge to fully capitalize on opportunities embedded in their own agreements”, said John O’Neill, President and Managing Partner, Southeast of Partners Real Estate.

“The private landlord market for federal lease contracts is significantly underserved,” said Mr. Johnson. “Landlords may be missing revenue they’re entitled to, and assuming risks they don’t have to. Partners is uniquely positioned to change that.”

The launch of Partners Federal Leasing is the latest milestone in the firm’s aggressive growth strategy—and a significant investment in its rapidly expanding Atlanta hub, where the practice will be based. In less than two years, Partners’ Southeast base has grown to more than 70 professionals, 18 of them Equity Partners, with recent highlights including the addition of industry veteran Sherri Wilson as Equity Partner in retail services; the acquisition of Powers Ferry Business Park, the first purchase for Partners Capital’s Opportunity Fund VI; the Seven Oaks merger elevating Partners’ Property Management and Development businesses; the hiring of a key valuation leader; and the addition of an industry-leading retail services team.

Mr. Johnson’s appointment gives owner clients with federal lease contracts a powerful combination: two-plus decades of senior leadership inside the GSA, paired with the depth of Partners’ fully-integrated platform—including Brokerage, Capital Markets, Investments and Development opportunities, among other offerings—a single-firm relationship spanning every segment of commercial real estate.