UK outlines its modernization plans to Frankfort panel
University of Kentucky officials appeared in Frankfort July 8 to detail the University’s plans for infrastructure improvements and growth through 2022. At left, Mary Vosevich, UK's Vice President for Facilities Management and Chief Facilities Officer, joined in the presentation with Angie Martin, Vice President for Financial Planning and Chief Budget Officer.
The University of Kentucky outlined its infrastructure priorities on July 8 before the Capital Planning Advisory Board in Frankfort.
Angie Martin, Vice President for Financial Planning and Chief Budget Officer, and Mary Vosevich, UK's Vice President for Facilities Management and Chief Facilities Officer, went before the board to detail the University's current and future infrastructure priorities, with a focus on facilities for students, research and health care.
"Our modernization principals talk about preserving and extending the useful life of our existing facilities," Vosevich told the panel. "We want to utilize that space so that we can really look at serving our growing student population — particularly in the STEM+H fields (science, technology, engineering, math and health) — and that we can also address academic and scholarly success in doing so."
The University asked the state board to approve $250 million in bond authority to fund its renewal and modernization pool for 2020-22. These funds are used to help the University address the many facilities on campus that require modernizing as well as much-needed but long-deferred maintenance.
Some of that maintenance involves utilities. The problems they can create were fresh on Vosevich's mind. Three recent power outages — one on July 4 —forced four campus buildings to be closed through the weekend after a transformer became damaged and started a small fire.
The Capital Planning and Advisory Board met in Frankfort July 8 to hear presentations from Kentucky’s post-secondary education community. The University of Kentucky’s presentation was offered by, from left, Angie Martin, Vice President for Financial Planning and Chief Budget Officer, and Mary Vosevich, UK's Vice President for Facilities Management and Chief Facilities Officer.
Vosevich provided the panel with an update to modernization plans that began in 2016. "This is the third time we are coming to you regarding modernization," she said. The Grehan Building modernization and the Chemistry/Physics Building — the first projects — are well underway as the University looks to the next round of campus improvements, she said. Those two projects also involved $5 million in utilities work.
In addition to the modernization pool, the University also requested an overall pool of $150 million in agency bonds to renovate and upgrade UK HealthCare facilities.
The Capital Planning Advisory Board prepares a biennial statewide capital improvement plan and makes funding recommendations to each branch of state government. The requests made July 8 by the University are expected to be considered during the 2020 session of the General Assembly, beginning in January.
Representatives of the University of Kentucky as well as representatives of the state's other public post-secondary education institutions were all appearing before the state board on July 8. State agencies also make their infrastructure requests to the board, whose members come from the legislative, judicial and administrative branches of state government, plus at-large citizen members.
The spending priorities outlined by the University of Kentucky are part of an overall six-year Capital Project Plan aimed at providing state-of-the-art facilities for students, faculty researchers and scholars, and clinicians. Other key aspects of the 2020-26 plan are the protection of historically significant buildings and enhancing the accessibility of University buildings.
——————
article and photos by Dean Holt, University of Kentucky Budget Office