Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Campus Housing Consultants Launch Strategic Planning Service

  • By Matt Jones
  • 06/26/24

Scion Advisory Services recently launched its new Strategic Housing Planning Service, a cost-effective and collaborative process that provides colleges and universities with a method to align its student-housing offerings with its institutional mission, according to a news release. The service takes into account the needs, hurdles, and possibilities across a full campus housing system, as opposed to the single residential facility that tends to be the focus of many feasibility or demand studies.

“We created this option to go beyond the limitations of a traditional single-building feasibility study by providing a complete assessment of a campus housing program,” said Scion Advisory Services Senior Vice President Jay Pearlman. “Significantly, for an institution not needing a full facilities condition assessment or a design exercise, a Strategic Housing Plan can provide the value of a full housing master plan at a reduced cost and in a much shorter timeframe. Our team is ready and eager to serve the higher education community with these new customized consulting services.”

The planning walks colleges and universities through their responses to critical issues like whether the current housing program supports the institutional mission; how to improve existing facilities to support current students’ needs and anticipate future ones; how to address aging facilities; how to discuss the relationship between aging facilities and student experience to university leadership; how to prioritize buildings for renovations, decommissioning, and reconstruction; how these moves could impact departmental cash flow; and available strategies and financing options to pay for repair, replacement, and construction, according to the news release.

“The COVID-19 pandemic caused many campuses to rethink the role of residential life. The Strategic Housing Plan addresses a notable void in the market for student housing planning services,” said Pearlman. “Our approach has been shown effective at institutions concerned with current conditions of housing facilities or the quality of the student experience, or who are working to improve their competitive position among peer institutions or with the off-campus market. A Scion Strategic Housing Plan provides a framework for future housing investments and could serve as a key first step in evaluating the viability of alternative financing, including public-private partnerships.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • St. Lucie County, Fla., Breaks Ground on New K–8 School

    St. Lucie Public Schools in St. Lucie County, Fla., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new K–8 school, according to a news release. The district partnered with Spiezle Architectural Group, Inc., for the design of the upcoming Ft. Pierce K–8 School, which comprises six buildings covering 215,000 square feet.

  • school building with glowing circuit board patterns

    AI Is Coming to Schools — But Most School Buildings Still Run on Institutional Memory

    As school districts race to introduce AI into classrooms, administration, and curriculum planning, another conversation is happening behind the scenes: How prepared are school facilities themselves for the operational demands AI will create?

  • Fellowes Expands Finish and Wall-Covering Options for Architectural Wall Systems

    Fellowes Architectural Solutions has expanded the materials library for its architectural wall systems with a series of new finishes and wall-covering options intended to provide architects and designers with additional choices for commercial interiors, according to a company news release.