Economic ups and downs have led some universities to invest in one their most precious assets – real estate.

Soon after being appointed president of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, John D. Haeger declared his commitment to an “enterprise model” of engagement and entrepreneurship, acknowledging the university’s role as an economic force in the region. Haeger realized the university could leverage its resources for the betterment of the city, which is challenged by limited job opportunities and a high cost of living.

“To best phrase it, we have the land,” says M.J. McMahon, executive vice president at NAU. “So we asked ourselves ‘what is the best use of that? How can we leverage it for the improvement of the university as well as the city of Flagstaff?’ We see the city as a partner.”

McMahon answers her questions by pointing to a new hotel and conference center opened in 2008 on the northern edge of the campus adjoining Flagstaff’s commercial heart. Working in partnership with the Drury Hotels Company of St. Louis, Missouri, the university relinquished use of a 4-acre parking lot to build a complex large enough attract business groups from outside the city and generate tourism dollars. Ayers Saint Gross designed the 41,000-square-foot conference center with state-of-the-art meeting rooms, an 11,000-square-foot ballroom, food service facilities and an adjoining 340-space parking garage.

A key partner in the plan is the medical products division of W.L. Gore and Associates, an international company employing about 1,600 people in Flagstaff. “They hold about 1,000 meetings a year where they bring doctors in from all over the world, but they haven’t been able to hold the vast majority of those meetings in Flagstaff,” says Rich Bowen, the university’s associate vice president for economic development. “Now they are excited because this is a venue that meets the quality level they need. And they’ll bring those conferences here.”

Bowen says the project was conceived much like a private development, predicated on the promise that it will be commercially successful. Before commissioning Ayers Saint Gross, the university tapped Jones, Lang, Lasalle, a worldwide hospitality consultant, and real estate developer Hines Benchmark to conduct a feasibility study and collaborate on a business plan. “It turns out there is a really robust market of 1,200 to 1,300 associations within the Southwest that now travel to outlying areas to host their regional conferences,” says Bowen. “Flagstaff has always been high on their list but until now, there hasn’t been a facility of the quality or the size they wanted.”

From an investment point of view, Northern Arizona University will subsidize the operation of the conference center over the next few years until it breaks even and then anticipates making a profit. “It’s really a net benefit for the community, about a $7- or $8- million impact for the community,” says Bowen. “The university, quite frankly, is doing this for larger reasons. This community had struggled forever to develop a conference space but simply couldn’t purchase the land.” In addition to providing Flagstaff with a much needed amenity, the new complex has helped to boost the reputation of the university and visibility of its campus, while improving its connections to local businesses.

Strengthening ties to the surrounding community also drove Franklin & Marshall College to undertake a $35-million retail and residential development along a major street connecting its campus to downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. College Row opened in 2007, fulfilling college president John Fry’s goal of linking town and gown as envisioned in ASG’s master plan for the campus.

“College towns are so full of energy and life,” says Fry. “I wanted to get away from the idea of the ivory tower and create an environment in which both the constituencies – residents and students – interact in positive ways.” He acknowledges, too, that there is an increasing preoccupation on college campuses with safety of students, faculty and visitors. “The best way to ensure safety is to have lively streets. So there’s a practical dimension to this project as well.” And it’s not lost on this college president that Franklin & Marshall will be more successful in attracting students if, in addition to academic offerings, its campus environment offers young people more places to have fun during off hours.

Fry admits he didn’t have the capital to create the ambitious, mixed-use development of his dreams, particularly with the constant pressure to sink money into academic buildings. But he could offer a built-in market for retail sales and services, and a key ingredient to the project – land.

So he pinpointed a seven-acre site on the north side of the campus, put together an RFP and solicited the development community. Before long, he struck a deal with Campus Apartments, a Philadelphia developer responsible for residential buildings at the University of Pennsylvania, to construct 117 housing units for about 400 students. The three-building College Row complex incorporates 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail spaces, including a specialty grocery store, restaurants and bistros.

“It is already creating street traffic, more buzz and excitement,” says Fry. “Now you can see five stories of lit apartments across from campus. It gives a better first impression.” With the buildings fully leased, he is turning his attention to expanding development onto an adjacent 30-acre site acquired during the construction of College Row.

Meanwhile, the financial success of the mixed-use project, which opened in 2007, allows Fry the freedom to funnel resources to campus needs. The college’s commitment to the development is limited to a 40-year ground lease with the possibility of renewals for up to 20 more years. After that, the development becomes the property of the college. The bottom line: “We are avoiding huge outlays of capital while providing quality assets for our students – and eventually we are going to own this,” says Fry. “So everyone comes out a winner.”

When Steve Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society called Ayers Saint Gross and asked the firm to develop a master plan for the Bronx Zoo, the reply was – “we’ve never planned a zoo.” Sanderson then responded “that’s okay, we’re not a zoo, we’re an educational institution.”

This broader definition of an educational institution is the premise behind the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI), which was established in 1986 as a not-for-profit learning research and development organization. Located in Annapolis, Maryland, ILI’s mission is to change the world of education and learning by understanding, facilitating, advocating, and communicating about “free-choice learning” across a person’s life span. According to the professionals and educators at ILI, “The most common type of lifelong learning is free-choice learning — learning that is self-motivated and guided by the needs and interests of the learner.”

“In the twenty-first century, we recognize that there is a huge educational infrastructure, and colleges and universities are the foundation,” explains John H. Falk, Ph.D., internationally known author and president of ILI. “But even college and university students learn from a myriad of educational resources. As human beings, we are on a lifelong trajectory of learning. Colleges and universities play a vital role in this learning journey – now we are beginning to recognize the importance and value of free-choice learning institutions and centers as well.”

According to ILI’s website, “Our society is just beginning to recognize and support the vast, important, and successful learning enterprise that takes place outside of schools and the workplace. Collectively, these experiences encompass what is known as the free-choice learning sector.”

From CREATING INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITIES, Volume 1, Number 2, 2007

For colleges and universities east of the Mississippi River, one of the most prevalent challenges today is to keep students living on campus longer and to develop a strong sense of intellectual community. But for schools west of the Mississippi, this challenge has a very different twist – namely, how do you accomplish this in the midst of an enormous enrollment boom that shows no signs of letting up?

A map of U. S. colleges and universities will clearly show the significantly greater number of schools in the East versus the West. And while the number of schools in the West is slowly growing, the real question is how those schools will keep pace with the tremendous increase in population growth and employment in the region. The impact of this population growth is even greater for public universities, where the demand for higher education is not only increasing in numbers, but in the variety of students seeking that education. As the Hispanic population explodes in the West, public colleges and universities are faced with the added challenge of building well-regarded academic schools and cutting-edge research programs, while meeting the demands of a more diverse population.

“The single biggest question faced by our university is: How do we operate the university of today while working to become the university of tomorrow?,” says Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow. Although ASU is not alone in this growing trend, it is clearly leading the way.

“This decade is perhaps the most crucial in the history of ASU, representing unprecedented growth and change,” says President Crow. “Arizona continues to be one of the fastest growing states in the United States, and ASU currently assumes 95 percent of the net growth (among the three state universities) in the university system. In order to accommodate the diverse academic, residential, and cultural needs of a flourishing university community, we must build an institution that fits the needs of both current and future generations.”

Global Lessons for Higher Education

In today’s global economy, China and India are emerging as new economic superpowers. This status has created a rapidly growing workforce in both countries, which has, in turn, created a huge demand for higher education and well-trained professionals. As both countries struggle to meet this demand in terms of quantity and quality of education, their universities have turned to a variety of models and consultants for the answers.

Guangzhou University City, China

In 2003, United States firms Ayers Saint Gross and Steffian Bradley Associates teamed to provide design consultation for the creation of a university city and a new university campus in Guangzhou, China. Guangzhou and its surrounding province are experiencing the addition of approximately 100,000 students each year to their higher-education system. Thirty-six colleges and universities are currently located in this city of nine million people. In order to free existing land in the urban areas, the province is creating a university city on the 10,000-acre Xiaoguwei Island in the middle of the Pearl River just south of Guangzhou. When complete, the city will house seven university clusters with multiple institutions sharing common facilities. The total build-out will involve more than 100 million square feet, including educational, commercial, cultural, residential, and retail facilities, to accommodate a total of 250,000 students.
The central district of the island includes the Eco-Park, which provides sports and cultural facilities, including a stadium for 35,000 people, a hotel/conference center, a library, a recreation center, and major lakes and gardens. The park forms the literal and symbolic center of the university city from which knowledge and water flow.

Within the university city will be Guangzhou University, which will provide seven million square feet for 20,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff. Unlike the United States, China customarily provides housing for all students and a large portion of the faculty and staff. In order to accommodate this and optimize the beauty of the island, the master plan takes advantage of the spectacular frontage and views of the Pearl River, while connecting the campus to the central area of the island through natural open spaces and greenways.
Due to the urgent mandate for higher education in the region, administrators have adopted an aggressive five-year timeline for the completion of this project. Although numbers and schedules such as these are unheard of in the U.S., they demonstrate the unyielding commitment of administrators and government officials to meet China’s exploding educational demands.

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Where Purpose and Palette Unite

How do you adequately meet the growing needs of your institution without dramatically disturbing the ecosystems that help define its beauty? How do you build upon the beauty and appeal of your surroundings and create open space that enhances your institution’s sense of community? These are the essential questions answered by the creation of a truly “sustainable landscape.” Although many site plans may strive to achieve a sustainable landscape, few will accomplish all of its criteria:

• Attractive not in and of itself, but in keeping with the environs, locale, and character
  of the site.
• Sustainable in terms of maintenance costs and manpower – the ideal sustainable landscape is often self-sustaining based on the location’s natural sunlight and rainfall.
• Functional as well as beautiful – the landscape provides a picturesque site for activities, both educational and recreational, and/or it serves as a natural means for practical functions such as site irrigation, storm water management, and/or grading.

Creating a sustainable landscape was the challenge for administrators at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. For years, the campus was bisected by the town street grid, including a busy road known as Pine Street. The school identified a three-cityblock area in the middle of the campus that they wanted to transform into a central open space named Brock Commons. The area is composed of a series of linked plazas and lawns of varying sizes and styles.

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“Every school, no matter where it’s located, is feeling the pressure to build more campus housing and enhance the student life experience…”

Arizona State University (ASU) Dean of Architecture Wellington Duke Reiter has been immersed in the world of architecture and campus planning for educational institutions since 1990, in locations ranging from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Northeast to ASU in the Southwest. The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Dean Reiter on current directions in campus planning for intellectual communities.

Do current trends in architecture and campus planning differ between the East and the West?

Actually, I see schools across the country becoming more similar in their approach to architecture and campus planning due to the common expectations we’re all seeing from our current and prospective students and parents. Across the board, students are looking for a more urbane lifestyle on campus. Parents are more interested in the appeal of on-campus living because they want their children to live on campus — for experiential and safety reasons. As a result, campuses of all types, sizes, and locations are taking a more holistic, luxurious approach to campus planning in an effort to make campus living model the lifestyle of off-campus living.

So where are the differences in campus planning trends in this country?

The differing directions in campus planning are really the result of the different “directions” — the locations — of the schools. By that, I mean that today’s diverse approaches to campus planning are based on climate imperatives and environmental factors that exist from one school location to another. In the Northeast, where snow may really only be an issue a few weeks a year, the climate doesn’t have a major influence on how buildings, walkways, and landscapes are designed and implemented. The greater influence is the tradition of style and culture on the existing campus and the desire to maximize the appeal of the surrounding town or city.

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This is one of the most exciting times in the last 50 years to be an architect.

The “isms” of the past 25 years – from postmodernism to deconstructionism – have thankfully faded to the background. As architecture, planning, and design become more influenced by sustainability, invention, and a respect for context, new levels of quality are appearing. Architects are creating buildings that do not rely on style but rather on craft and discovery. Our focus on substance is even more critical as we are asked to consider such global issues as transportation, population and physical growth, water resources, and the environment.

There is a unifying element that we employ as we strive to solve challenges ranging from a growing campus in Arizona to the design of a new residence hall in Florida. The one thing that absolves the broad array of problems we are asked to answer is the transcendental power of design. And as the “isms” of the past are left behind, what has emerged is a principle I call balanced beauty. Balanced beauty is a fundamental and transcendent part of our lives. Catching a solo by John Coltrane or the glimpse of a ship sailing into Baltimore’s harbor beautifully lifts our soul.

So does studying the plan of Villa à Garches or discovering Jefferson’s sublime skylight design at Monticello. All of these beautiful experiences rely on elements both sensory and technical.

Conceiving and capturing this kind of balanced beauty in the things we design is the goal of our firm. Strengthening this is our belief that a beautiful object, a beautiful building, a beautiful environment has greater inherent value for society than one less beautiful. Balanced beauty is in essence an added value to what all our clients seek.

We believe that when our clients engage us, they are not merely asking us to solve a pragmatic problem; they are also buying harmony, balance, proportion – qualitative aspects that should exceed the expectations of mere function and shelter. These solutions should comprehensively combine beauty and function, while striving to respect nature and the environment. It is then a combination of many things – some qualitative and some quantitative, some pragmatic and some spiritual – that defines balanced beauty. And we believe that achieving balanced beauty is a noble goal, for one’s quality of life is largely determined by the inherent beauty of our society’s buildings, grounds, campuses, and cities.

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Why Good Construction Documents Make A Good Foundation

Just as a cornerstone provides for a strong and stable foundation, good communication and documentation anchor a construction project. Well-executed construction documents organized in a logical and well-labeled manner serve to protect everyone on a construction project, from the owner or client to the architect and contractors. More importantly, thorough documentation facilitates good communication, and that communication is essential to a successful project. With strong and continuous communication and documentation management, institutions reap the benefits of a project that is completed on time and on budget.

The critical function of good documentation management is not lost on Ayers/Saint/Gross Construction Administrator, Tradonna Massenburg. The job she now holds was created specifically to insure that every written communication, construction document, and contract is properly labeled, tracked, executed, and filed to protect the interests of everyone involved in the design and construction process.

“Good relationships and good communication are the hallmarks of a successful project,” explains Massenburg, “but without the documentation to track every step of the process, good relationships deteriorate quickly when a problem occurs.”

Massenburg should know. As a project “gatekeeper,” she serves as the center of the wheel on a construction project, insuring that the lines of communication remain open between all of the “spokes” – the client, the architect, the construction manager, and each of the contractors. But more than that, she manages every piece of documentation, insuring that it is approved by all relevant parties and properly stamped and filed for retrieval at a moment’s notice if a problem or question arises.

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Can U.S. Schools Meet the Demand?

The nursing shortage in the United States has been well publicized over the last decade. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the nursing shortage remains a topic of primary concern. According to the AACN website:

• More than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2012 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, February, 2004).
• Forty-four states plus the District of Columbia are expected to have a nursing shortage by 2020, up from 30 states in 2000 (Health Resources and Services Administration Report, 2002).
• The number of U.S. nursing school graduates who have sat for the NCLEX-RN – the national licensing exam for RN’s – has decreased 10 percent from 1995 to 2004 (National Council of State Boards of Nursing).

This shortage will likely be exacerbated by the rise in palliative-care programs in this country, where nurses are playing a greater role in comfort and end-of-life care within hospital and assisted-living facility settings. Hospitals and other health-care facilities are using a variety of incentives and staffing sources in an attempt to fill the never-ending stream of staffing vacancies. Now, nursing schools are jumping into the fray with an attempt to attract and retain a greater number of qualified nursing students.

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Each year, Robert Dillman goes before the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia for approval of $300- to $500 million in construction. Every time, someone asks, “Why does it cost more here than at a comparable institution?” And every time, he explains that it doesn’t – in 25 words or less.

Those words are different for each project, but Dillman always sticks to his short answer policy. He is UVA’s chief facilities officer but spent nearly three decades in the Navy, completing his career in the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps as head of design and construction for its worldwide construction program. As such, he was required to make monthly appearances before Congress to explain the status of $7 billion in annual projects around the world, particularly those with cost overruns – or funding shortfalls. The less he said, the better his point was understood.

Dillman’s approach is part instinct but mostly experience. “I learned to rely on my own historical data to deliver true cost estimates and back them up,” he says. He advises looking at all direct costs, not merely design and construction; not relying on cost estimators, although his campus uses three of them; and to referring to notes from prior jobs, articles, and case studies for guidance.

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