Maintenance and engineering managers understand all too well how difficult it is to secure funding to help institutional and commercial facilities. But this challenge becomes even tougher when the finalized and secured funds never materialize. Consider the case of one state’s promised funds for campus construction.
Buildings on Illinois’ college campuses were falling apart when lawmakers approved $2.9 billion for higher education construction as part of the 2019 Rebuild Illinois capital plan. The funding brought hope for long-overdue upgrades, but the slow rollout has left colleges in limbo.
Five years later, one-half of the 16 promised projects are still tied up in planning, according to Capitol News Illinois. A series of setbacks have stalled progress, including staffing issues at the Capital Development Board, the state’s construction management agency, rising post-pandemic construction costs and local disputes over how to stretch funding that no longer covers what university officials originally planned.
Construction costs shot up nearly 40 percent by 2023 compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to Associated Builders and Contractors.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale faced a similar problem with plans to fully renovate its 1960s-era Communications Building on the Carbondale campus with roughly $85 million allocated from Rebuild Illinois. By the time they set out to finalize the design, officials no longer had enough funds to do what they’d originally planned.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.?
