Regents postpone UI, UNI projects due to efficiency review

AMES - A Board of Regents committee on Tuesday agreed to postpone two proposed projects at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa pending results from an efficiency study underway across the state's public university system.

The regents' property and facilities committee did agree to include in its 'five-year state-funded capital plan” for the 2016 to 2020 budget years immediate progress on an Iowa State University project to construct a 'student innovation center.”

'I'm not picking anyone out,” said regent Milt Dakovich, chairman of the committee. 'But with what we know about the direction we are heading with the efficiency study … the multi-disciplines and curriculums and functions (of the ISU project) seem to come closest to the direction we are headed.”

UI officials had hoped to begin in 2016 renovation and modernization of its most outdated building complex on campus - Seashore Hall and its attached wings, which sit near the core of campus along east Jefferson Street. But the project, which is being funded in part through state support, now has been pushed to begin in the 2017 budget year.

The university can, however, proceed with an 'enabling” portion of the Seashore Hall project without state funding - construction of a $27 million space that will serve as the 'front door of the psychology department.”

Psychology is the university's largest department within its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences - it counted nearly 1,300 undergraduate majors and delivered more than 23,000 credit hours of undergraduate instruction to more than 4,300 students last year, according to regent documents.

Construction of the psychology space would 'decompress” the existing Seashore Hall and allow crews eventually to modernize significant portions of the building while also eliminating outdated components. The plan is to ask the Board of Regents later in the fall to proceed with the schematic design and description of that initial portion of the larger project.

UI director of planning and construction Rod Lehnertz told the regents committee Tuesday that Seashore Hall has the highest need for renovation on campus and the plan to upgrade it not only will serve psychology students but reach across the university to other colleges and departments while also addressing millions in deferred maintenance.

But Dakovich said the consultant hired by the Board of Regents to conduct an efficiency study of its three public universities has been looking at best practices for space utilization. And, in its discussions, Deloitte Consulting has gone so far as to say that projects looking simply to fix, upgrade, or remodel something 'broken and old” are not the best option, Dakovich said.

'With two of these projects, that's just exactly what we're doing,” he said, referencing UI's Seashore Hall project and one proposed at UNI to remodel and renovate several buildings. 'We have to make absolutely sure that's the way we want to head.”

Regent Larry McKibben, who also serves on the regents' property and facilities committee, agreed that it makes sense to pause the UI and UNI projects pending the efficiency review. But, McKibben said, the mission of ISU's proposed student innovation center comes closest to the vision put forth in the efficiency review.

'The ISU project might come as close as anything for what we're looking for going forward into the future,” he said. 'So I'm open to that.”

The committee agreed to keep a 2016 request of $8 million in state funds for the ISU project in its five-year plan, which will go to the full Board of Regents for approval on Wednesday. The 175,000-square-foot facility aims to support student interaction, hands-on and discovery-based learning, and activities for several colleges and disciplines, including engineering and design.

'The physical environment would allow students to develop a depth of knowledge in a specific area, as well as the breadth of skills in different, but related areas,” according to a description of the proposed center in board documents.

Dakovich said it's those multi-curriculum, multi-discipline, multi-facility aspects of the ISU project that make it stand apart. It's unclear whether UI and UNI officials will be asked to revamp their project proposals before receiving approval.

'In one year from now, it will be well established what needs to be built,” Dakovich said.