The institution operates and maintains physical facilities, both on and off campus, that appropriately serve the needs of the institution’s educational programs, support services, and mission-related activities.

   X    Compliance                   ___Partial Compliance                       ___Non-Compliance

Narrative

SPC Master Facility Plans

The determination of space needs is based on the approved Annual Five-Year Capital Outlay full-time enrollment equivalents projected by the Florida Department of Education COFTE602 Report, the changes in academic program needs approved by the Board of Trustees, and the list of vocational programs approved by the Florida Office of Workforce and Economic Development in accordance with Florida Statute 1013.31.

Every five years the College’s Facilities Planning and Institutional Services Department, in collaboration with campus administration, evaluates the existing facilities inventory and academic needs of the institution in order to properly plan for housing academic programs, the anticipated student population, and the needs of Faculty, administrator and ancillary services. 

The College has contracted with Architect/Engineering firms to update Master Plans for each campus site.  The College currently is aware that additional parking is needed at several sites.  Although concrete numbers have not been derived, the College has purchased 3 acres on the west side of the Health Education Center for expansion.  A study is underway to determine if additional parking will be needed on the Seminole Campus.  Due to environmental constraints of the property, a parking garage may be required.  As the studies are completed, the information will be provided on all sites where additional parking is required.

A Five-Year Educational Plant Survey is conducted for each College site and specific recommendations are prepared to provide for identified needs through new construction and the remodeling of existing facilities in accordance with Florida Statute 1031.31.  In addition, recommendations are included for continued upgrades to life safety systems and for compliance with ADA.  In order to provide a timely response to changing needs in the community and continue to provide accessible academic opportunities, the College re-evaluates the Master Plans and the Five-Year Survey on an ongoing basis and prepares the appropriate amendments as necessary for approval by the Board of Trustees and submittal to the Florida Department of Education.

Supporting needs of educational programs, support services, and other mission-related activities.  Using this information the College conducts master planning for new sites and updates existing Master Plans in response to the development of new academic program needs, changing demographics in the College’s service areas and the requirements of local and regional employers for a trained workforce.  The Master Plan provides for the acquisition of property, the delivery of new facilities, and the remodeling and renovation of existing facilities.  The College strives to accommodate educational program changes and to provide for student and institutional support in accordance with the planned academic programs and instructional delivery methods projected over a five-year period.

Funding for the identified projects is requested each year in the College’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).  The Facilities Department in collaboration with the Provosts, Chief Executive Officers and Staff develops the document in Annual Planning Meetings at each campus.  Following the development of the projects, the administration, Provosts, Chief Executive Officers and the Facilities Department meet to establish the priority listing for the funding requests.

Once funding is received for requested projects, the Facilities Department and campus personnel collaborate to select an Architectural and Engineering (A & E) firm who assists in the development of the project program and scope.  The needs analysis process begins with determining whether new programs can fit into existing facilities or whether new square footage is required.  Charettes by the consultants help incorporate user needs and desires into projects.  These are formally documented in project Educational Specifications as recommended in the State Requirements for Educational Facilities (SREF), Section 3.2.  The Educational Specifications are used as the basis for the development of Construction Documents in collaboration with user input.  Once the Construction Documents are complete, the College ensures the construction process follows the guidelines of the Florida Building Code and Florida Statute 1013.371 for conducting plans and specifications review, issuing a Building Permit and inspecting the construction.

Recent revisions. Based upon this information, in order to satisfy the continued identified needs, the College has expanded in various areas of Pinellas County.  The College acquired property in downtown St. Petersburg to satisfy classroom space for the growing student population in this area.  This includes a downtown Corporate Training Facility providing Corporate Customers a training facility in the immediate area.  The College opened a Midtown Campus which supplies the need for growth on the south side of St. Petersburg.  The College now has two Joint-Use Libraries in operation.  One is located on the Seminole Campus and the other on the St. Pete/Gibbs Campus.  These projects satisfied both the needs of the College and our city partners.

                                       Joint-use Library at the St. Petersburg/Gibbs campus

The College acquired property adjacent to the Health Education Center.  This property will be used for added parking for the Health Based Programs including the Orthotics and Prosthetics Program.

The College recently completed the EpiCenter, a Joint-Use Facility between the College and Pinellas County.  The facility provides instructional space for several high-tech, two-year programs, as well as the four-year Tech Management Program, University Partnership Center (UPC) Programs including the University of South Florida’s Masters in Business Administration Program, Collaborative Labs, training space for the WorkNet Program and other Administrative space for Pinellas County Offices.

                                         Example of an EpiCenter user

Routine and preventive maintenance

Facilities Services includes all the Custodial, Fleet Services, Landscaping and Maintenance of existing facilities.  This is recognized as critical in order to maximize the useful life and ensure dependable performance of College facilities.  The College has a comprehensive maintenance program that employs a full-time Plant Supervisor at seven (7) campus/site locations (11 actual sites), 28 full-time maintenance workers, 13 landscapers and 77 full-time custodians who service the facilities.  The College also utilizes some contracts for Landscaping and Maintenance when needed.  The Custodial Staff cleans and sanitizes College facilities daily in compliance with all established State Standards.  They report safety issues observed and work required to the Maintenance Department for corrective action.  The College has contracted all elevator service and maintenance and conducts an Annual State Certification Inspection on the elevators in accordance with the Florida Bureau of Elevator Safety regulations and statutes.  Facilities Services has provided centralized assistance in developing a comprehensive database for tracking site budgets.  The database gives the campus/sites a day-to-day accounting of how much money they have to spend for maintaining the facilities.  The campus/site personnel have been trained as part of the budget process to identify other potential sources of funding for maintaining the facilities.  The campus/sites have been given direct access to roofing contractors through the Small Contractors List allowing them to make roof repairs immediately.  This has saved the interiors of facilities from damage and potential In-door Air Quality problems.  Facilities Services monitors all utilities accounts to minimize expenses and ensure we stay within the budget.

Deferred maintenance plan

SPC’s Deferred Maintenance Program (DMP) was established to meet capital improvement needs for each College-owned facility on the inventory.  The College takes the following actions to address deferred maintenance:

·         Repairs or replaces broken critical building systems that have exceeded their life expectancy or to avoid liabilities associated with life and safety, environmental, or mandated compliance programs and disruption of vital college operations

·         Upgrades buildings and equipment to lower maintenance costs and liabilities

·         Installs high efficiency equipment with new technology to lower utility costs and maintain realistic preventive maintenance practices consistent with industry standards

A deferred maintenance list is compiled and maintained by the Facilities Services Department.  Two primary methods are used to add projects to the list.  The first is by direct field observation by Facilities Services staff.  Second is input from the Planning, Design and Construction Services staff working on capital projects.

·         Approximately twice a year Facility Services asks the Operations & Maintenance staff to review the existing deferred list and add any new deficiencies to the list.  They also are asked to prioritize any new projects with the existing ones.  A new list is then compiled and distributed to all interested parties.  Projects also are added when building users or Facilities Planning and Institutional Services identify a deferred deficiency.

·         The deferred maintenance list is distributed to Planning, Design, and Construction Services where it is checked against any capital projects that are in the design queue.  Ideally, items on the list are addressed as part of capital projects, thereby preserving maintenance funds for other needs.

Every spring, Facilities Services and Institutional Planning announces an approximate amount of infrastructure money that will be available for deferred maintenance, and requests a prioritized project list from the Provosts.  This list is combined with any critical infrastructure needs that Facilities Services has identified and reviewed with Planning, Design, and Construction Services to produce a consolidated list from the two departments and the sites.  These projects receive infrastructure funding in the next fiscal year to the extent funds are available.  Projects that fail to make the cut-off for available infrastructure money generally are re-introduced for funding the following year.

Adequacy of physical facilities

The adequacy and currency of College Facilities is demonstrated by classroom and laboratory utilization reports that demonstrate adequate capacity, up to date equipment and by a facility planning process that ensures the proper space allowed by the State for all education programs, support services and the various activities that occur on each campus, projected over a five (5) year period.

The Facilities Inventory provides the database for all reports involving the physical facilities.  The College, through Facilities Planning and Institutional Services (FPIS), is responsible for the maintenance and annual electronic submission of an accurate database to the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), Office of Educational Facilities (OEF).  The Facilities Inventory, along with personnel and student data, are submitted to FDOE after each term.  The data is used to develop Facilities Utilization Reports to determine instructional capacity and to identify space needs.  These are used to prepare the Capital Outlay Budget Requests.

The following table from the 2006-2007 Fact Book documents the adequacy of space.  SPC has increased the classroom and laboratory space significantly over the last three years and has considerable headroom for future growth.  The College is currently operating at 71 percent capacity for classrooms and 84 percent for laboratories.  (This is based upon 100 % use rate for classrooms at 40 hours per week and laboratories 30 hours per week.)

                                                      Excerpt from 2006-2007 Fact Book, Table 33

Satisfaction with facilities.  St. Petersburg College uses the Enrolled Student Survey, administered each fall, to gather data on student satisfaction with all services, including those related to facilities.  Over the last four years, student satisfaction with the adequacy of Facilities and Parking has increased.

                                Excerpt from 2006-2007 Enrolled Student Survey                     (on a scale of 1-7)

Academic And Student Service	N=4045	N=3757	N=5062	N=2558
Satisfaction Ratings Comparison of Years	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
	2006/07	2005/06	2004/05	2003/04
Facilities	5.98	5.74	5.65	5.34
Parking	4.84	4.54	4.25	4.21

As a result of the lower-than-desired satisfaction ratings in the area of parking in earlier years, SPC has had a number of projects to improve the parking at various campuses, including Clearwater, St. Petersburg/Gibbs, and Health Education Center, and has improved communication to students on locations of available parking at all campuses.  The increased satisfaction ratings are an indication that parking is meeting students’ needs better each year.

References