Le Cordon Bleu

Le Cordon Bleu Minneapolis/St. Paul is a 75,000-square-foot building located in Mendota Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. This modern facility is a part of Le Cordon Bleu program at Brown College, offering a dynamic and progressive culinary education to meet the needs of their students and the industry.

Challenges

In 2005, NorthMarq was awarded the facilities management of Le Cordon Bleu’s facility in Mendota Heights, Minnesota. As part of a network of cooking schools around the country, Le Cordon Bleu employs high-profile marketing for its facility, which includes a restaurant open to the public and seven commercial kitchens (all requiring meticulous cleaning standards). NorthMarq compiled a detailed review of all services and projects in place for the facility. Once the services were tracked, NorthMarq evaluated expenses and provided a complete plan to reduce total operational expenses and to eliminate or defer the services that were not essential to the maintenance of the building at that time.

Solutions

The review yielded an annual savings of $1.34 per square foot. Some examples of services where expense reduction became an apparent option include trash service, security services, utility consumption, and staffing. Savings included the deferment of two projects; elimination of on-site security; a reduction of engineering staff; an adjustment of thermostat set points, refuse service, and custodial service; the reduction of lawn maintenance services; and participation in Xcel Energy’s Saver Switch program. The changes had a favorable financial impact on operations while maintaining comfortable service levels.