Maricopa County Community Colleges District

Making adjustments┬áThe Maricopa Community Colleges DistrictÔÇÖs 10-year bond for expansion ran headlong into the roaring inflation that buffeted the construction market earlier in the decade. Ever since, as Keith Regan learns, the school has been working hard to find ways to stretch its construction dollars. In November 2004, voters in Maricopa County, ArizonaÔÇöthe then-booming region around PhoenixÔÇöoverwhelmingly approved a secondary property tax on themselves in order to fund a 10-year expansion and renovation at the Maricopa Community Colleges District. The $950 million bond program was assembled to enable all 10 community colleges in the district to build or update the facilities needed to teach the 250,000 students who enroll annually. MCCD includes the 10 collegesÔÇöeach of which is separately accreditedÔÇöas well as two technical skills centers, with about 5.2 million square feet of facilities space county-wide. Just months after voters backed the funding, however, the carefully assembled 2004 bond program, the result of years of long-range planning and priority-setting, ran headlong into a buzz saw in the form of the overheated construction market in the Greater Phoenix area, the sun-baked region that for years in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade was one of the countryÔÇÖs fastest-growing metropolitan areas. Even with the relatively robust inflation assumptions that had been built into the budgets for the bond program, projects were soon running into a harsh reality that was fueled by a nationwide building boom and competition for steel, concrete and other raw materials from places such as China and India, says Arlen Solochek, AIA, district director for facilities planning and development. ÔÇ£We got hammered,ÔÇØ says Solochek. ÔÇ£I think every institution in the country that had a similar time frame had the same experience. We had quite a shock as we started to get the first round of projects off the ground. Even in the design phases we were finding prices had gone up six to ten percent or more per year. We quickly found out that if we were not in the ground by the end of the third year, all the inflation that we had built into our cost models already had been eaten up.ÔÇØ MCCD has spent much of the past three years finding ways to work with that reality. In response, some campuses cut back on the scope of projects, and in other cases the colleges chose to move funding forward from projects slated to be built later, knowing they were of a lower priority from the outset. In still other cases the assumptions behind projects were revisited, with a fresh look taken at enrollment trends. ÔÇ£It just introduced chaos into the whole bond planning, and itÔÇÖs been a scramble ever since to complete as much of the scope as we could and to figure out what comes next,ÔÇØ Solochek adds. Most projects used a construction manager at risk model, and some savings were found through value engineering. Other more recent savings have come through subcontracts that have been issued in the more recent and much slower construction market. Even though the design and construction community is beating a path to the districtÔÇÖs doorÔÇöÔÇ£They know weÔÇÖre a good client to work for; we have that reputation in the building industry,ÔÇØ Solochek saysÔÇöthe competition has not produced close to the savings that would be needed to make up for those years of white-hot cost increases. MCCD has also had some success with forging public-public partnerships, finding instances when other municipal and nonprofit agencies have work they are planning and then packaging them together to stretch budget dollars. Examples of shared facilities are a library, a YMCA and a community center. The projects in the bond package are varied, with a heavy emphasis on science and health professions teaching space as well as buildings that reflect a more interactive form of learning than the older, traditional lecture-hall approach. Each campus has control over whether projects follow the formal certification process to become stamped as Green by the LEED program overseen by the US Green Building Council. ÔÇ£Some campuses will choose to go for the designation, and others will choose to use the extra soft-costs money toward another program or amenity in the building,ÔÇØ says Solochek. The district has been at the forefront on sustainability in a number of ways and, as a general rule, targets buildings to meet the Silver LEED standard. ÔÇ£Our 1994 bond program had $5 million for energy efficiency in it,ÔÇØ he notes. ÔÇ£The district was out in front on putting up more efficient buildings even before the green movement came along. But there is always that debate about how best to spend the limited budgets.ÔÇØFor other reasons, Solochek fondly recalls that 1994ÔÇô2004 bond program, which by comparison, ÔÇ£we ran through like clockwork, hitting every project budget, every timeline, and we were always able to look ahead and see what was left. With this 2004 bond program, every day is still a scramble, and we have to rethink and reformulate. There are delays in starting projects and delays in delivery and complications in between. The only thing we know for certain is how much money we have left in the program.ÔÇØAlthough the small District Facilities Department has been on the front line, Solochek gives credit for responding to changes and successfully managing the 2004 bond program to the leadership and staff at the District Office and the colleges. Now complicating things further is the fact that the district wonÔÇÖt build facilities that it doesnÔÇÖt have the operating funds to run over the long term. ÔÇ£Given whatÔÇÖs going on in the economy, every publicly funded institution has budget woes to consider.ÔÇØ Still, MCCD has a long history of providing both college preparatory and vocational training to tens of thousands of students, with many going on to four-year institutions such as nearby Arizona State University. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve got a long history of growth, and weÔÇÖre back to growing again; we need to keep our eyes focused on that future.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Dan Finn┬á