Miami University’s campus is full of historic landmarks and red-brick buildings. To keep these timeless buildings up to modern standards, dorms, dining halls and academic buildings require semi-annual maintenance.
But how does Miami decide which buildings need updating?
The Physical Facilities Department uses facility condition indexes (FCIs) to determine how much money has been invested into a building in comparison to when it was built and last renovated.
Associate Vice President of Facilities Planning and Operations Cody Powell said every building has a “life cycle cost.” This means that from the time it’s built to the time it’s destroyed, it needs to be maintained with regular cleaning costs, utilities and modernizing the space. Eventually, this will include paying for removal.
Powell gave the example of constructing a new building today worth $10 million. This doesn’t include furniture, fixtures or the cost of design. He would then assign that building a lifespan of 50 years, with an annual cost of $200,000. He said the current replacement value divided by the lifespan informs them if it’s more economical to continue with building improvements or not.
“What we’re trying to do is just say, in general, how much are we reinvesting back into our buildings,” Powell said. “If we look at that over time, how then does that compare to what we’re actually spending and does that look like we’re in a state of degradation or not.”
However, he said every component of a building is also given a life called deferred maintenance, where buildings accumulate unfinished repairs that have outlived their life cycle.
It’s not just the life cycle cost that’s looked at, but also the use of the buildings or infrastructure itself.
Powell used Millett Hall as an example. If Millett were to be built today, construction alone would be between $160 and $180 million. He added that when Millett was built in 1968, it only served men’s basketball, but now it holds three Division I sports. Moreover, the current layout is not sufficient to support all the activities, resulting in a change in demand.
According to the Facilities Condition Report for fiscal year 2023, Millett’s FCI is more than 51%, meaning it hasn't had any real substantial reinvestments in years, making it hard to recruit student-athletes.
He said the new arena would have practice and competition courts and hold roughly 6,500 instead of 10,000, generating space for the new courts as well as responding to the local demand.
A 0% FCI means a building is brand new or enough money has gone into it annually to maintain its condition. Powell said a 100% FCI doesn’t mean the building is falling apart or unsafe – the university just hasn’t put any money into it.
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Miami has a goal of maintaining a 30% or less FCI overall and tries not to reach 50%.
“[Fifty percent is] more of a tipping point where we really haven’t made major investments, but major investments are needed,” Powell said. “... How much is it impacting those who are using the facility or staying in the facility? Is it meeting our programmatic needs? Just because it was something that was built in the 50s and we’ve done some modifications to it, it may no longer make sense for us. So do we reinvest in it, or do we take it down and build something else?”
He added it’s not only an issue of wondering which buildings to reinvest in, but also where to get the money.
He said the talk about how to tackle Millett has been going on for at least eight years. Miami has looked at how to renovate it, and how to add an addition for practice courts, but inevitably they had difficulty getting donors excited about renovating an existing building without a naming opportunity.
“So we reached a point where it's like, ‘All right, well, what are we going to do? Do I spend $80 million on a building that still might not meet our needs or do we spend more but create a situation that we think is going to be more efficient and meet the university's needs over time,’” Powell said.
The total FCI for Miami at the end of fiscal year 2023 was 33.89%, an increase of 1.32% from 2022, according to the FCI report.
Bachelor Hall was constructed in 1978 for $5.3 million. Replacing Bachelor Hall is estimated to cost $52.6 million, according to the FCI report. However, it’s estimated that $31.6 million would be needed in 2023 to simply return Bachelor Hall to a “like new” condition. Hence, Bachelor Hall’s FCI is estimated to be 60.04%.
Other buildings in similar states are Harrison Hall (68.5%), Boyd Science Building (51.08%), Phillips Hall (49.6%) and Thomson Hall (83.7%), before it was torn down for unrelated reasons. The Miami Inn, unlike the others, was at 25.94% before being demolished.
According to the report, out of 179 buildings on Oxford’s campus, 75 academic, auxiliary, residential and administrative buildings are below 30%. Fifty-two are between 30-50%, with another 52 also above 50%.
Powell said years ago the university started updating the residence halls in batches after they averaged a 60% FCI. They didn’t meet accessibility needs for students, they didn’t have fire suppression or air conditioning and window units weren’t an option. After more than 12 years, the university is on the last three dorms to be renovated: Tappan Hall, Morris Hall and Emerson Hall.
Those three are at 54.54%, 52.12% and 52.22%, respectively.
“We’re just now finishing up, but we can’t do that again,” Powell said. “We need to keep reinvesting and picking buildings that we’re going to take off and renovate so that we don’t find ourselves where you have to come up with a billion dollars all at once [again].”
Rob Abowitz, the associate director of residence life, said the upkeep of residence halls is important so that students have an environment where they can study, sleep and live. He added, though, that overall, students won’t remember if their dorm was renovated or not when looking back.
“Their experience in the residence halls has more to do with the relationships they build, the things they do, the ways they get involved, the connections they make, the support they get from being on campus,” Abowitz said. “It does not have to do with whether you're in a renovated building.”
Miami is 85% done with the 25-year plan to update all the residence halls, with the last ones beginning over the summer of 2025.
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