University Facilities 2025 Sessions

In today's evolving higher education landscape, campus spaces must be adaptable to serve multiple goals while competing with other institutional priorities for precious dollars. In this case study, session leaders chart the multi-pronged path forward to meet Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine’s 2030 Vision: Repurpose a historic campus for modern student life, improve space quality, meet program requirements, increase space utilization, reduce operational costs, address deferred maintenance, and meet campus electrification commitments in the next 10 years. They illustrate a systematic methodology for developing a Campus Framework Plan enabling institutions to do more with less, meet strategic goals for growth, modernization, and enhanced campus experience, and prepare for the future.

Academic institutions confronted with a diverse user group and shifting priorities -- hybrid learning, shared resources, and enhanced flexibility – will benefit from incorporating evidence-based design criteria from other sectors into campus strategy, design, and space use decisions. Session leaders illustrate the use of design-integrated post-occupancy evaluation research at Hawkeye Community College to deliver actionable insights for campus development and maximizing the impact of available funding. They examine solutions to common higher ed challenges such as engaging diverse stakeholders, navigating institutional complexities. They demonstrate models for translating findings into strategic improvements to foster innovation, align facilities with institutional goals, and position academic environments as leaders in adaptive, flexible design.

Academic health campuses are rapidly evolving due to changes in health education, healthcare, and urban density, with increasingly dynamic space needs driving innovative design solutions. Session leaders illustrate how UNC and other leading institutions are attracting and preparing students for these new realities. They examine an integrated planning process leveraging “Five Big Ideas” to improve institutional standing, extend reach and influence, attract and support student life, and prepare for growth in medical school class size. They outline future-focused approaches to space allocation and identify key details for success in planning dynamic spaces including benchmarking, visioning, stakeholder engagement, and virtual tours to support evolving medical education and post-pandemic challenges.

What should owners budget for cost escalation in 2025 and beyond as the Federal Reserve continues to reduce interest rates? What pricing structure should be used to accurately estimate costs for your university projects? Attend this session to get better pricing and more accurate budget figures, and better understand construction cost drivers for different college and university projects. The Vermeulens team delivers up-to-date construction cost forecasts based on economic conditions, job creation and cost data from more than 200 projects. Using analyses of equities, GDP, construction labor markets and their national construction weather map, they illustrate regional construction pricing targets for the next two years and demonstrate bid and purchasing strategies that lock in costs and reduce risk.

Capital project decision making has never been so complex, and new analytical methodologies are required to reconcile institutional mission priorities with the needs of multiple stakeholder groups, existing conditions, space utilization targets, and budget limitations. Presenters examine newly-refined processes for extracting actionable insights and opportunities from available data sets and communicating efficiently to support optimal facility investment decisions – build, renovate, or repurpose. They deliver space-based cost metrics for the wide diversity of space types emerging in response to increasingly team-based and interdisciplinary learning and discovery activities associated with fast-moving technology, science, and engineering initiatives.

Space management technology has become a pivotal tool as universities expand faculty and student populations or compress programs --- competition for space is becoming increasingly complex. In this session, you’ll see how Boston University's Questrom School of Business has effectively tackled this issue, transitioning from outdated room reservation systems to a streamlined, self-governed scheduling solution that empowers faculty and teaching assistants to book shared office spaces efficiently. Session leaders delve into common hurdles faced by universities including balancing faculty needs with limited space and ensuring compliance with university policies. They profile the use of office hoteling, space use culture change, and how to remove organizational bottlenecks.  

The campus experience -- both function and feeling – is a leading factor in recruitment and retention of faculty and students, and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) capital projects deliver on those goals like few other campus investments can. Through a series of case studies, session leaders illustrate the use of STEM buildings to elevate campus competitiveness at leading institutions. They distill success factors and design strategies for pedestrian and visual connections, creating belonging for diverse student populations, and adding the “wow” factor for campus tours. They chart trending features for STEM buildings that create identity, build community, and enable next-gen teaching and research models.

All the data in the world is useless if it can’t be turned into relevant insights and communicated clearly. This presentation illustrates the leveraging of sophisticated data modeling tools and the influence of academic partners to advance projects through the administrative approval process and overcome significant hurdles. Session leaders illustrate how to harness data to demonstrate space utilization problems and opportunities in ways that build enthusiasm at every level through the approval process. They examine tangible financial impacts, project story telling models, and the tailoring of communication strategies for productive ad-hoc meetings, budgeting, and IT department engagement.

Innovation hubs are proving pivotal in harnessing higher education’s most disruptive forces to thrive amidst external pressures. Bringing together experiential learning, interdisciplinary initiatives, and student-centric education models with industry partners, innovation hubs drive creativity, foster community and professional connections, and birth productive new collaborations. Session leaders examine success factors and lessons learned distilled from two case studies: Seattle University’s Sinegal Center for Science and Innovation, and the University of Houston Innovation Hub. They demonstrate the importance of space planning and innovative design in maximizing the meaningfulness of out-of-classroom experiences, and preparing students to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving workforce.

Post-pandemic realities have reshaped campus space needs, and UCF is at the forefront of using real-time space utilization data to address these changes. Here you’ll see what they’ve learned in the process, and how the data has launched 550,000-sf worth of space reassignments and operating improvements targeting $6million in savings and paving the way for academic and research growth. Session leaders illustrate the use of smart systems to inform real-time HVAC adjustments, reduce custodial costs, and improve space planning. They demonstrate capabilities for driving efficiency and sustainability, navigating financial pressures and deferred maintenance challenges, and refining campus compression and adaptive reuse strategies.

Now more than ever, delivering projects on budget is a challenge. Material shortages, long lead times, and fluctuating and escalating costs that began in 2020 still plague the construction industry today, requiring new tools and methods for managing project budgets. Cynthia Labelle and Blair Tennant detail a team-based cost target design model to set up projects for success and avoid budget shortfalls, scope reduction, and other cost-related surprises. They provide best practices and lessons learned for implementation, and illustrate methods for linking cost target design with effective preconstruction processes. They demonstrate how this model unlocks procurement strategies for maximum competitiveness.

The renovation of Belmont University's Jack C. Massey Center exemplifies how interdisciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge interactive technology can shape a campus culture that thrives on innovation. This state-of-the-art facility is home to Belmont's 3D Initiative -- Design, Discovery, and Data -- and serves as both a hub for academic exploration and a central space for student life, bringing together students and faculty from various fields to solve complex problems and push boundaries. Reese Stevens and Grace Johnson provide a detailed look into the technology that made this transformation possible, how Belmont's leadership embraced technology to tell compelling stories that resonate with prospective and current students and reinforce the university's mission of service and innovation. 

Digital tools to streamline Indirect Cost Recovery data collection and reporting are paying additional dividends in space utilization planning for research and healthcare organizations. Sanjiv Singh discusses the processes and software solutions, specifically Integrated Workplace Management Solutions (IWMS), that are being used to capture data on space, facilities, Principal Investigators (PIs), and grant information. He illustrates the strategic advantages these tools deliver in preparing the Facilities & Administrative (F&A) reports submitted to the federal government. He also demonstrates reporting capabilities fully integrated with floorplans that provide a comprehensive view of the data and assist in space use decision making.

This session delivers an effective action plan for uncovering the kind of space utilization insights universities need to make strategic decisions on managing, repurposing, or disposing of assets. Brad Rogers profiles case studies of leveraging off-the-shelf products and custom-built applications to inform master planning at the University of Kansas and other institutions, and he details processes and technologies for integrating and visualizing space data, institutional information, GIS data, and benchmarking metrics. He discusses strategies for reconciling quantitative metrics, qualitative information, nontraditional data, and the university's vision to support a holistic and sustainable campus plan, and illustrates solutions for data collection and analysis challenges commonly encountered on college and university campuses.