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From Maintenance Drain to Operational Gain: URBN’s Lighting Overhaul

URBN — the parent brand of Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, & more — found that outdated lighting was beginning to take a toll across its fulfillment and distribution portfolio.

  • Full-time maintenance: Maintenance technicians were spending 20 to 40 hours every week on lighting maintenance alone, repairing and replacing lamps and ballasts.
  • Sub-standard light: Light levels topped out at 15 to 20 foot candles, well below the 28 to 35 needed for safe, accurate operations.
  • Energy waste: Long operating hours at 20 hours a day, 5 days a week were amplifying costs tied to wasted energy.

See how our team helped upgrade three of their facilities — including a 1 million sqft. fulfillment center — to a custom, energy-efficient LED lighting system with advanced controls to slash energy waste, eliminate those maintenance burdens, and and ensure best-practice light levels were reached for a safer, more productive working environment.

Read the Story
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Headshot of Justin Owens, Director of Facilities URBN, for an LED Lighting Success Story Interview with Pacific Energy Concepts (PEC)

12,000

Fixtures Upgraded

4.3M

Annual KWH Savings

$650,000

Saved On Annual Energy Spend

URBN logo

Industry

Warehousing & Distribution

Key Benefit

Advanced Design & Controls, Incentives & Rebates, Prevantative Maintenance

PEC Solution

LED Lighting
Contact Sales

When Lighting Starts Holding Operations Back

Aerial view of URBN distribution center

In a high-volume fulfillment environment, lighting impacts more than visibility. It affects productivity, safety, accuracy, and daily operations.

Across three URBN facilities — the Gap, PA Fulfillment Center and Distribution Center and the Reno, NV Fulfillment Center — nearly 12,000 aging fluorescent fixtures were underperforming and increasingly difficult to maintain.

Light levels topped out at 15 to 20 foot-candles, well below the 28 to 35 needed for detailed warehouse work. At pack stations, employees struggled to read fine print on pack slips and order details, and lighting complaints were routine. The problem was worst at night, when the facilities were still running and the skylights no longer helped. Some work areas reconfigured over the years had no fixtures overhead at all.

Maintenance teams were spending 20 to 40 hours each week replacing failed lamps and ballasts, creating ongoing labor costs and operational disruptions.

Poor light was slowing work on the floor, and keeping the old system running was consuming technician time URBN needed elsewhere.

We were spending about 20 to 40 hours a week for electrical maintenance technicians or either repair, replace, whether it’s lamps, ballasts. As we looked at it and started doing our evaluations, we realized we were only at about a 15 to 20 foot candles as our high. And we realized quickly that we needed about 28 to 35.

Headshot of Justin Owens, Director of Facilities URBN, for an LED Lighting Success Story Interview with Pacific Energy Concepts (PEC)

Justin Owens
Director of Facilities at URBN

Designing An Efficient, Standardized Lighting Upgrade

To understand URBN’s lighting needs and scope the work, PEC and City Electric Supply (CES) completed a joint audit of all three facilities. They found task areas well below recommended light levels, uneven lighting between daytime and nighttime shifts, and work areas left without fixtures after years of layout changes.

From there, PEC worked with URBN’s team to set priorities around three key outcomes.

Efficiency: Every design decision was weighed against long-term energy use. PEC specified fixtures 15 to 20 percent more efficient than the lower-cost alternative, plus controls that dim lights when skylights provide daylight. More efficient projects also typically qualify for higher utility incentives, which helps fund the upgrade.

Light level uniformity: Consistent, adequate light keeps a workspace safe, productive, and accurate, and it improves employee morale. PEC used photometric lighting models to design each zone to IES-recommended light levels (the industry standard for each type of task), with consistent coverage from aisle to aisle.

Standardization: Another major goal for URBN was consistent technology across its portfolio. A single standard reduces maintenance complexity: technicians support one system, learn one software interface, and work with one manufacturer and warranty process when a component fails. PEC specified Acuity LED fixtures with nLight AIR controls, which brought all three upgraded facilities in line with URBN’s new-build distribution center in Kansas City.

PEC and CES presented tiered packages showing the cost and expected light levels of each option. URBN chose the middle tier, which gave them the control flexibility they needed without paying for extras.

We want to make sure that facilities teams see the value and be able to not have to worry about thousands and thousands of lamps and ballasts that are going to be a continued issue unless you directly address it.

Tommy Allen - Sales Director - PEC Pacific Energy Concepts

Tommy Allen

Director of Product Strategy & Development at PEC

A Turnkey Implementation, Start To Finish

With fixtures, lumen packages, and controls selected, the next challenge was execution. The project covered nearly 12,000 fixtures in three facilities across two states, in buildings that couldn’t stop running. The Gap Fulfillment Center alone has close to 6,500 fixtures and runs 20 hours a day with up to 400 employees on site. URBN’s facilities team was already supporting 10 sites, so PEC took ownership of the work from procurement to final utility inspection.

Installation: A dedicated PEC project manager worked alongside URBN’s on-site facilities manager from kickoff to closeout. PEC-vetted crews sequenced the work around employees, equipment, and process flow, and CES handled procurement. Regular schedule check-ins kept all three projects on track without disrupting operations.

Incentives: While crews installed, PEC’s Energy Program team managed the utility side. That covered pre-approval, applications, inspections, and closeout documentation with PPL in Pennsylvania and NV Energy in Nevada. Pre-approval locked in the incentive amount before installation began, so URBN knew exactly what it would receive.

Ongoing support: At closeout, URBN received O&M documentation mapping every fixture by location and a 10-year all-component warranty, with PEC managing any claims.

The Result: Lower Costs, Better Light, Freed-Up Technicians

Financial & Energy Impact

  • $654,155 total annual savings
  • $449,276 incentives secured
  • 4,295,958 kWh reduced annually
  • 3,580 metric tons of approximate CO2 reductions
  • 66% reduction in energy consumption
  • 3.6 year payback

Operational Impact

  • Light levels doubled, improving accuracy on fine-print pack station work
  • 20 to 40 technician hours a week of lighting maintenance eliminated
  • Zero lighting complaints since installation
  • One standardized platform across all four facilities, including Kansas City
  • Clear increase in employee morale

Three big wins from this project… we have zero lighting complaints, we have a clear increase in morale, and we doubled our foot candles, which translates into a lot more accuracy.”

Headshot of Justin Owens, Director of Facilities URBN, for an LED Lighting Success Story Interview with Pacific Energy Concepts (PEC)

Justin Owens
Director of Facilities at URBN

BEFORE

Before URBN's LED Lighting Upgrade - Gap PA Fulfillment Center - Shot 1
After URBN's LED Lighting Upgrade - Gap PA Fulfillment Center - Shot 1

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

URBN Urban Outfitters Before

AFTER

BEFORE

URBN distribution center interior before lighting upgrade
LED Lighting for Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers - URBN - Gap, PA

AFTER

BEFORE

Before URBN's LED Lighting Upgrade - Gap PA Fulfillment Center - Shot 2
After URBN's LED Lighting Upgrade - Gap PA Fulfillment Center - Shot 2

AFTER

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