University of St. Thomas Corrective Maintenance Program

CASE STUDY

UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

Giving shape to vision

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CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE:
A STRATEGIC INSTITUTIONAL ISSUE?

By Carolyn Glime, AIA

With the total backlog of corrective maintenance at higher education institutions estimated
to be over $40 billion, it is likely one of the largest expenses higher education faces in
the future for an institution with a “bricks and mortar” campus to succeed. This estimate
accounts for over one billion square feet of campus facilities1 which equates to a cost of
about $40 of corrective maintenance needed for every square foot of space on campuses
nationwide. You can do the math at your institution, but as an example, if I worked at a
campus with one million square feet of space, I could estimate that my backlog might
be about $40 million. To take it a step further, let’s say that my one million square foot
campus houses approximately 2,500 students, which is feasible when applying a 400
square feet per student allocation, then the cost per student for deferred maintenance
is $16,000 per student. Compared with the average cost to recruit a student at
approximately $2,400 for private higher education2 and to instruct a student at almost
$18,000 per year3, the deferred maintenance cost could be considered quite strategic.

Leadership teams spend considerable effort and attention on the recruitment of students
as well as student instruction to determine the most effective and efficient way to conduct
these operations. However, the responsibility for corrective maintenance issues most often
lies with the Director of Facilities/Physical Plant who is not typically part of an institution’s
leadership team. Moreover, the vast amount of corrective maintenance is not easily visible
to anyone on campus, and therefore, they do not even know it exists until something fails
that impacts the campus experience. Often, that is when the problem is corrected, and not
sooner. Why not budget accordingly then? Using the same example as above, if the $40
million is amortized over 40 years, the monthly payment would be about $220,000/month
or approximately $2.6 million each year, which many institutions are not able to fund, and
yet, doing less than that only perpetuates the problem because this is the cost to catch up
on the deferred maintenance problem.

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GIVING SHAPE TO VISION

It is how we align your institution’s aspirations with intentionally
designed environments that transform the student experience
into successful results.

In order to achieve “zero” corrective maintenance,
an institution would need to invest about 2-4% of the
current replacement value (CRV) of their facilities into
“maintenance,” meaning for a 1 million square foot
campus, at $300/square foot, there would be $300
million in CRV. At 2-4% this equates to an annual
maintenance investment of $6-12 million, or between
$2,400-4,800 per student each year to maintain
a campus of this size. Combine this with existing
deferred maintenance (per the first calculation),
and you would be looking at a range of $3,600-
6,000 per student to catch up and keep up on their
facilities maintenance if amortized over 40 years. This
represents the “real” cost of building ownership and
maintenance that needs consideration.

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Interior assessments of Geology laboratory finishes, casework, lighting and technology

Organizations such as SCUP, NACUBO, and APPA have University, from the Board of Trustees down, when the
exposed this issue for years, and many companies, inquiry began about 15 years ago with an attempt to
including EUA, have been trying to address this issue quantify the backlog from information provided by the
in higher education because the campus environment facilities staff.” Since Jim arrived at the University of
has a significant impact on the recruitment of students St. Thomas in 2012, he has committed to reducing the
and student experience on campus. One of EUA’s backlog of deferred maintenance on campus beginning
clients, the University of St. Thomas located in St. Paul with the development of a corrective maintenance plan
and Minneapolis, MN understands the issue well, and to quantify and qualify the total backlog of corrective
has made a commitment to addressing their deferred maintenance on campus.
maintenance needs through a Facilities Renewal
Program. It identifies all physical asset needs, whether Working with EUA, the process included a visual
corrective maintenance or programmatic in nature, inspection of all campus space by our team of
and evaluates each with respect to its ability to align engineers and architects and incorporated information
with the institutional strategic plan. Jim Brummer, provided by the University’s facilities department to
the Associate Vice President for Facilities, said that deliver an objective assessment and prioritized plan for
“corrective maintenance is very much a priority at the all corrective maintenance needs on campus.

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Detailed assessment scheduling and review of central plant upgrades and replacement

The corrective maintenance plan identified approximately Although many institutions do not have the funding, nor
$67 million in deferred maintenance need a prioritized plan to address corrective maintenance
campus-wide, and Jim has said that “the corrective the way the University of St. Thomas is able to do, most
maintenance planning has informed our decision making address their corrective maintenance needs in some way,
about future campus improvements and our current typically during the summer months when there are less
expansion plan. Within the next 3-5 years, the University student and faculty activity on campus.
is planning to invest $20–25 million to resolve much
of the most significant needs that were identified. $7- EUA’s approach to facility condition assessment
12 million will be trimmed from the list based on the and capital planning services combines integration,
major renovation of three of the oldest residence halls innovation, and client engagement. Our team of
on campus in the next four years, and a new academic architects, engineers and planners assess and document
building that is currently being planned will replace facilities capturing facts into our CMProgram®. The
an older facility with the largest deferred maintenance CMProgram® provides clients with a prioritized,
backlog. The most significant impact on the deferred organized, and responsible method to address corrective
maintenance backlog comes when programmatic and deferred maintenance. Clients are empowered with
change and corrective maintenance can be address real-time results, management tools and reports for all
simultaneously in projects that align with our strategic levels in organizations.
plan which is what is happening now.”

1Sightlines; 2015 State of Facilities
2RNL; Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student Report 2018
3National Center for Education Statistics; Fast Fact report for 2015-2016
Jim Brummer was interviewed for this article on April 19, 2019.

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Attic HVAC systems and roof membrane integrity

Piping and central mechanical systems 6

MATT MAREK, P.E., LEED AP BD+C milwaukee : madison : green bay : denver : atlanta eua.com
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