Renovations and Conversions: The New Focus for University Facilities
For administrators and trustees of higher education institutions, rising construction costs and other market forces combined with shrinking annual budgets mean putting the brakes on new construction projects. Capital investments these days are focused more often on making the most of existing campus facilities, with splashy new athletic centers, technology hubs, and other prestige projects put on ice for the time being.
According to recent research into the education sector, experts are observing “a rebound in investment in existing campus assets over the past several years.” In 2023, for example, U.S. colleges and universities saw a 26% increase over the previous year in strategic investment in existing facilities. One historic university in New Jersey provides an instructive example: Aggressively tracking new construction for years, the university’s annual capital budgets previously in the billions will likely be closer to $500 million in 2026—still significant, but reduced to a level that impedes pursuit of large-scale new construction is.
This trend may change when the economy stabilizes at some undetermined point in the future, but for now it is likely to continue. For facilities managers and campus planners, this may indeed be welcome news as long-awaited efforts to enhance assets for better functioning and performance, or to adapt them to new uses, finally take shape. Students, faculty, and staff interact with these spaces frequently, making them critically important to campus life and proportionally likely to need updates or re-evaluation.
Importantly, these spaces are often just as visible and vital as those high-profile prestige projects. Modest, high-value, sustainable investment can significantly enhance building performance, asset value, user perception, and even recruitment prospects across the facilities portfolio. Recent discussions with campus planners and facilities leaders indicate growing interest in these types of projects. Architects make ideal collaborators when trying to identify value-driven project opportunities, helping to generate plans to adapt or upgrade an existing building or interior space that require fewer resources to produce improved basic functionality, extend building life span, or realize new uses.
Small Investment, Big Impact
Capital improvements continue apace for institutions, both on campus and off, though smaller in scale and focused on existing assets. For example, a major historic university recently completed upgrades to a row of Tudor Revival-style townhomes used as housing for faculty and graduate students. Close to the campus, the units received full refreshes to the interiors plus modernization. The kitchens and baths now feature new fixtures, furnishings, energy-efficient appliances, and LED lighting throughout. These updates are expected to enhance the university’s prospects for recruitment of talented academics.
Similarly, another large higher education institution in Montclair, N.J., launched several asset renovation and reuse projects. Most recently, the university updated a 100-plus-seat lecture hall seeing regular use with better lighting, refreshed aesthetics, improved accessibility, and new seating and audiovisual systems for the 1,600-square-foot space. The same university is reimagining an underutilized black-box theater as a state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) lab, with a focus on infrastructure upgrades to support the new high-tech equipment. The design also considers future changes, the goal being a modernized venue that can support other uses yet to be imagined. As with the lecture hall, the VR lab project includes accessibility improvements that enhance both its appeal and its functionality.
Some colleges and universities may be entirely focused on recruitment, leading them to focus their efforts on public-facing assets. Rutgers University – Camden’s welcome center offers a valuable example. In a street-facing portion of an existing building on this urban campus, a new lobby design combines artwork, visual media, and a brand-inspired palette of finishes and colors to tell the school’s “story.” Deeper inside, new spaces for presentations and interviews complete the functionality of this vibrant environment, helping make a positive first impression on visiting recruitment prospects.
Of course, some campus assets present significant challenges for project teams looking to convert to new use or even just to make upgrades, and the older the building the greater the challenge. An intensity of systems is the defining feature of contemporary campus building uses, and not every structure can house it effectively. Depending on the need, tearing down and building new may turn out to be the most cost-effective option—but some historic or iconic structures may be considered untouchable. Sometimes the project team is left with the challenge of “fitting 10 pounds of modernity into five-pound architecture,” so to speak.
Expectations of modern campuses have been set very high, and institutional leaders trying to keep up may task facilities teams with seemingly impossible tasks. Nevertheless, engaging architects to take on reuse and renovation projects remains a valuable strategy for colleges and universities with dwindling annual capital budgets, offering considerable potential for return on investment.
In the end, strong partnerships between architects and facilities teams can produce enhancements to asset value while helping to achieve near-term growth goals for administrators and improve the experience of the campus for both visitors and daily users.
Mark A. Sullivan, AIA, LEED AP, is a partner with JZA+D, an integrated architecture and interior design firm headquartered in Princeton, N.J.
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