UC Davis is taking its first 10-year look ahead at the buildings and physical improvements the campus needs to support a swelling student and employee population.
The draft form of a 10-year plan - and the capital investments needed to support the projects - has been circulating among deans and vice chancellors since the spring. A final version will be released to the campus community later this summer on the Web and in print form.
More than 100 projects are detailed in the plan - including construction of new buildings, renovations to others and infrastructure upgrades.
Of note are building descriptions and funding strategies for high-profile projects such as the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. But also included in the plan are first glimpses at projects farther down the pipeline, such as a new neurosciences center and more veterinary medicine facilities. An expanded law school and the redevelopment of the corridor of buildings east of Walker Hall to include a variety of student and academic services are also being conceptualized under the blueprint.
Overall through 2012, the campus estimates that will incur construction costs of more than $1.2 billion dollars. So far, UC Davis has identified $866 million in funding sources for the projects.
Vice Chancellor of Resource Management and Planning John Meyer says it is unusual for a campus to glimpse so far in the future; five-year plans have been the norm. He believes UC Davis is the only campus in the UC system looking so far ahead in its physical and financial planning.
But it's a smart way to do things, said Meyer, who came to the university from the city manager's post in Davis, a municipality that in the early 1990s put together one of the first 10-year city plans for the state.
The plan allows his office to be open about the campus's needs, he said.
"While a 10-year plan raises challenges, the earlier we have awareness of those challenges, the more time we have to bring resolution," Meyer said.
One of those tasks is funding the projects. Over the years, the ways in which UC Davis pays for its building projects have grown increasingly complex.
"Ten or 15 years ago we would be waiting for the state capital bond act to pass, and whatever came our way, we would use it wisely," Keller said.
Now, only one-third of the university's capital budget comes from the state, he said. For the 2002-2012 plan, the campus will also use federal money, campus funds and loans, research grants, gifts and student fees.
The 10-year outlook allows UC Davis to identify its needs ahead of time and look for creative ways to pay for and plan its construction projects, Meyer said.
For instance, the campus needs a new neuroscience building to consolidate researchers' work areas in a critical area of biology, said Division of Biological Sciences Dean Phyllis Wise.
The building also will offer space to replace obsolete animal housing now scattered on campus and add additional quarters. It will be paid for mainly through the state's Garamendi program. The program allows the university to pay off building costs through overhead on federal research grants that would otherwise be funneled to the state.
The division has already successfully used the research funds to help pay for the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Building now under construction.
Plus, the university will be hiring new junior and senior faculty members to perform research in the new facility, Wise said. "The Garamendi funding will put us in a good position to perform cutting-edge research in neuroscience," she said.
The School of Veterinary Medicine, too, will use a couple of funding sources as it consolidates programs into the Health Sciences District from outdated space in Haring Hall, said Don Klingborg, an assistant dean.
The building known as Vet Med 3B, which will include faculty offices and lab space, will be paid for largely by the state, he said.
But other additions to the school - such as the proposed Western Institute for Food Safety and Security - may be paid for through private sources.
"We have been extremely successful in finding money for those buildings that are more issue-based," Klingborg said.
The 10-year capital plan does assume that California voters will approve two bonds for K-12 school and university building projects on the ballot in November and in March 2004, Keller said. About $4 billion of this money is earmarked for the state's public colleges.
The university will also be raising money of its own during the 10-year planning period, he said. "Bricks and mortar will be an important part of that."
The UC Davis 10-year plan will be released in August and will be revised annually.