A new report says that colleges and universities do not plan sufficiently for the ongoing costs of operating and maintaining structures built on campus. In addition, the construction of new campus buildings is sometimes based on criteria that are not clearly defined, the report says, and buildings are often designed to fit current users, without consideration for how the buildings might be used in the future.

The report, called “Buildings… The Gifts that Keep on Taking,” was sponsored by the Center for Facilities Research, a division of APPA, an organization for facilities managers. The report is based on a three-year study that included interviews and meetings with top college administrators, including presidents, chancellors, and facilities managers.

The decision to build should be based on “a set of integrated decisions that take into account the need and priority for construction and renovation, the total costs of ownership, and the impacts of alternative investment choices on the institution’s basic mission and objectives.”

However, that integrated decision-making is usually not what happens at colleges, the report says. Design and construction costs are often considered one-time capital costs, separate from maintenance costs, and those maintenance costs are not always clearly defined when a building goes up.

Previous studies have shown that there is a serious backlog of deferred maintenance on college campuses, estimated at $36-billion, the report notes. Colleges spend about $20-billion on facilities operations every year (including maintenance, energy, and utilities), and $14-billion on new construction. Yet the amount being spent on maintenance is going down in recent decades, the report says.

The report profiles “Warbucks Hall,” a real building with a different name at an unidentified research university in the Midwest. The lifetime cost of designing, building, and demolishing the building will come to $80-million. The cost of maintenance, operations, retrofits, and upgrades to the building in its 75-year life will run about $115-million.

Although there is a demand for more space on campus, the use of classrooms and laboratories already built on campus is “unacceptably low,” the report says. “Space utilization studies frequently indicate significant availability in these room sin the late afternoons and on Fridays at many campuses.” Often the problem is related to the design of space, which are “either designed for or dedicated to single uses or disciplines, making it difficult to convert or reassign them to optimize their use.”

College administrators need to consider various strategies and factors before rushing in to build, the report says. Among them:

— Colleges should establish a reserve account for maintenance and renewal — Spaces should be designed for flexibility and adaptability, and colleges should better utilize the space that has already been built — Maintenance and renewal of existing buildings on campus should be considered before approving new construction — Facilities planning and investment should be related to an institution’s mission and goals

“Most institutions find it difficult to turn down a generous offer to fund a new building,” the report says. But donors usually want to build the most space that their dollar will buy, leaving the colleges to figure out how to find money to operate and maintain their new buildings. “Because [maintenance and operation] costs far exceed initial design and construction costs, it is imperative to hold frank discussions about the implications of the total cost of ownership before initiating a major capital investment.”

The report is available from APPA for $70 for members and $95 for non-members.