Keeping Up With Facilities and Maintenance

This month’s issue of College Planning & Management focuses on facilities — from our 2012 Living on Campus report to our 2012 Education Design Showcase.

Colleges and universities own some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Despite aging facilities and budget cuts, they are doing an admirable job protecting the assets they have. The funding gap is being counterbalanced by the extra efforts of their facilities maintenance staff. Leadership has improved and complacency has been replaced by employee engagement — two welcomed (although somewhat unexpected) benefits in these tight economic times.

Even with all of their efforts, the amount of deferred maintenance is a growing concern among facilities departments. In our annual survey on residence halls facilities, the issue of deferred maintenance came in second only to student/parent expectations on the list of “top concerns.” While these two issues seem to focus on different areas, they are really connected in many ways. The condition of facilities has a profound effect on recruiting and retaining both students and staff. In fact, our survey tells us that 91 percent of institutions feel that the quality of their on-campus housing is a determining factor in whether a student will attend their institutions.

Quality is more than curb appeal. Too often “curb appeal” wins the battle over real maintenance issues because it is visible. Outside we landscape and plant flowers, while inside the infrastructure falls apart. We allocate funds for “emergency” repairs, solving immediate problems, but ignoring the source of the problem — the need for regular maintenance. A great deal of “regular maintenance” requires staff, time, and accountability, not money. Colleges and universities need to be sure to thank their staff for their efforts to keep facilities running and the lights on. After all, maintaining our existing facilities should have the same 
significance as building them. 

Featured

  • Los Angeles City College Breaks Ground on New Administration, Workforce Building

    Los Angeles City College (LACC) in Los Angeles, Calif., recently broke ground on a new $72-million administrative facility, according to a news release. The Cesar Chavez Administration and Workforce Building will stand four stories, cover 67,230 square feet, and play home to a wide variety of the school’s educational and administrative services.

  • University of Kansas Opens $400M Football Stadium Reconstruction

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently announced that the $400-million reconstruction of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is complete in time for the 2025 football season, according to a news release. The university partnered with Turner Construction Company on the project.

  • Case Study Highlights Texas District’s Campus Security Upgrades

    The Taft Independent School District near Corpus Christi, Texas, recently partnered with Intech Southwest Services to revamp its campus security technology system, according to a news release. Intech has released a case study on its website detailing the process that advanced the district’s technology by more than 20 years in less than three weeks.

  • Pittsburgh High School Upgrades Athletics Facilities’ Technology

    Plum Senior High School in Pittsburgh, Penn., recently partnered with South-Dakota-based Daktronics through the We’re All Mustangs Here Foundation to upgrade the technology in its athletics facilities, according to a news release. Daktronics designed, built, and installed new LED video displays and finished the project in time for the beginning of the 2025 high-school football season.