Gordian study finds $2.7B 10-year capital need across IHL campuses; committee hears demolition bill idea

Brad Rowland of the Institutions of Higher Learning summarized a Gordian facilities condition assessment contracted in 2023 that quantified deferred maintenance and informed a four-year capital plan.

Rowland said Gordian assessed approximately 1,400 buildings (the medical center excluded) and identified roughly $2.7 billion of 10-year capital needs and about $1.6 billion in backlog and deferred maintenance. He described an approach that scores buildings by net asset value (replacement value minus capital need) and suggested an annual target investment of about $130 million to stabilize and reduce backlog.

The report highlighted that IHL manages 1,631 buildings totaling just over 42 million gross square feet, with wide variation by campus. Rowland noted that some campuses have high backlog per gross square foot while others have benefited from recent capital investment, and he provided campus-level backlog and priority-project examples.

Committee members who toured campuses earlier described many vacant or obsolete buildings, inconsistent local matching and insufficient R&R line items at institutions. Senator Williams urged stronger local "skin in the game" and previewed a demolition bill to ease removal of unsafe or economically obsolete nonhistoric buildings; Rowland said Gordian identified roughly 155 buildings as candidates for decommissioning.

Rowland and legislators discussed strategies to reduce backlog, including consistent R&R budgeting (1.5—to—3% of replacement value is recommended), clearer local-state funding leverage, and use of project scoring to defend bond requests. Rowland said ongoing projects are reflected in the Gordian dataset and that the aggregate plan would drive the system's bond requests.