Rice & Gardner Consultants, Inc. in association with VANIR Construction Management, Inc., was selected to provide a comprehensive Facility Needs Assessment for Houston Independent School District in 2015.
The Facility Needs Assessment utilized a Customized Data Base to record facility conditions of individual building systems via Wi-Fi and 3G wireless connectivity to Cloud Storage for real-time data collection.
Individual Assessors focused on building systems by Architectural, Site, ADA, Roofing, Foodservice, Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing disciplines.
Assessment Planning: March – May 2015
On-Site Assessment: June – August 2015
Report Development: September – October 2015
Reference:
Sue Robertson, General Manager Planning, Director of Facilities Houston Independent School District (713) 556-9250
Capital Planning Assessment
Rice & Gardner Consultants, Inc. provided the survey information necessary to plan major renovation and new construction of school facilities to meet the educational needs of the district, the modernization of existing facilities, and replacement of existing outdated facilities.
An analysis of facility condition and educational adequacy allows Houston ISD to make recommendations for capital facility improvements or replacements, a timeline for implementation, and a projected cost to implement improvements over a ten (10) year planning period.
Maintenance Assessment
In addition to the Capital Planning Assessment, Rice & Gardner Consultants, Inc. assessed major building systems that may need replacement as part of a group of facility improvements or as stand-alone improvements for school facilities not scheduled for major renovation or new construction. Major systems such as Roofing, HVAC, Kitchens, Fire Alarms and Emergency Lighting may be accomplished within District Facilities Departments or contracted through various budget means.
Cost Estimating
Cost Models were developed utilizing Uniformat Systems Cost Estimates to compute Facility Condition Index (FCI), a comparison of the cost to renovate verses the cost of replacement with new construction.
Building Systems will have an industry-standard “Useful Life” to be used for time-weighted replacement costs.
Deficiency Cost Estimates were developed for a series of cost models for building system deficiency replacements for the majority of situations encountered by the field assessors.
Capital Planning Assessment allows Houston ISD to develop a Long-Range Capital Facilities Improvement Plan with a 10 year planning horizon. This provides the District with a baseline for capital improvements involving major renovation or replacement of facilities to meet a useful life of 20-30 years for renovations and up to 50 years for new construction. Building systems were evaluated to meet current District Design Guidelines and consists of providing cost-effective improvements, considering life cycle costs, to maximize the value of capital and operational expenditures over the useful life of the facility.
Report Formats
A series of reports were developed to provide Houston ISD with different levels of data summaries.
High Level (Dashboard) summaries capture the overall cost summary information useful for broad overviews.
Mid-Level summaries compare all facilities against each grade level for comparative analysis.
Detailed (Building Level) reports provide explicit detail of each building system, costs, photos and commentaries.
