Campus Infrastructure Needs Focal Point of Gordian Facility Assessment

BATON ROUGE, La. – For the past two years, experts in higher education facility management have been reviewing Louisiana’s postsecondary facilities of each of the state’s four public postsecondary systems to assess needs and guide improved efficiencies.

To complete its facility condition assessments, Gordian, along with Regents and system staff members, visited every campus across Louisiana’s two- and four-year degree-granting public postsecondary institutions. The resulting assessments provide the data needed to prioritize investments and support strategic capital planning, identifying deferred maintenance and critical deficiencies related to physical infrastructure.

“Higher education always provides a thoughtful and thorough presentation of capital outlay requests,” said Commissioner of Administration Taylor Barras during September’s Budget Hearings. “Gordian’s facility assessments will only aid in setting an appropriate environment for evaluating continued capital outlay needs.”

Based on its data, Gordian has identified a deferred maintenance backlog of $4B for higher education facilities in Louisiana and created a construction age profile for buildings located at each institution across the four systems. The four construction age profiles are:

• Buildings Under 10 Years of Age (Low Risk): Little work, “Honeymoon” period.
• Buildings 10-25 Years of Age (Medium Risk): Short life-cycle needs; primarily space renewal.
• Buildings 25-50 Years of Age (Higher Risk): Major envelope and mechanical life cycles come due.
• Building Over 50 Years of Age (Highest Risk): Life cycles of major building components are past due. Failures are possible. Core modernization cycles are missed.

The average construction age of buildings in the LSU and University of Louisiana Systems is 64, followed by the Southern University System at 61, and LCTC at 53. LCTC, the state’s newest higher education system, has the highest percentage of buildings in the lowest risk category (22%), while the UL System had the highest percentage of buildings with the highest risk (35%).

”This comprehensive independent assessment of our facilities comes at a critical time, as the Board of Regents prepares to submit capital outlay recommendations to the Administration and the legislature. We will certainly use the knowledge gained to sharpen our priority recommendations regarding infrastructure, demolition and overall facility management. We’re grateful that the legislature has funded this tool and are certain that they too will use it.” said Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Kim Hunter Reed.

Gordian’s findings will inform campus master planning as well as the Board of Regents’ Capital Outlay and Deferred Maintenance requests going forward. It is estimated that 70% of Louisiana’s state buildings are on public postsecondary campuses, emphasizing the importance of this analysis and the prioritization of facility recommendations.

Gordian will present the findings of its statewide facility assessment on Wednesday, October 21, during the October Board of Regents meeting, to be held on the Southern University A&M campus. The two additional Gordian assessments, focused on space utilization and operational and energy inefficiencies, are expected to be complete by the end of this year.

The Louisiana legislature provided $10M in funding in 2024 to support this three-part statewide assessment.