By Roland Murphy
The 2024 BEX Leading Market Series Higher Education Capital Projects event took a slightly different turn this year with a primary focus on current and upcoming projects from Arizona State University and market trend insights from leading design firm Architekton.
The event took place this week at SkySong in Scottsdale with a panel comprised of:
- Cassie Saba (Robertson), SW Regional Prefab Leader at DPR Construction (Moderator);
- Tom Lyons, Assistant VP, Capital Programs Management Group at ASU, and
- Rachel G. Rasmussen, Partner at Architekton.
After brief introductions from BEX Founder and President Rebekah Morris and Moderator Saba, Lyons launched into a quickfire recap of statuses for more than a dozen projects around ASU’s various campuses and facilities.
Items of particular interest and note from Lyon’s introduction include:
- Although work on ISTB 12 at ASU’s Polytechnic Campus is nearing completion, there are still more than 300 acres ready for development there.
- A request for qualifications will be released for a construction manager at risk for the $180M ASU Health Building in downtown Phoenix after the holidays. (Design SOQ’s were due Nov. 1.)
- Also coming after the holidays will be an RFQ for the Polytechnic Student Union Expansion. (Design SOQ’s were due Nov. 8.)
- Students will need facility accommodation before the Health Building is ready. To address that need, ASU is planning an approximately $8M renovation to the Mercado’s buildings B and C in downtown Phoenix. (That CMAR RFQ is currently on the street.)
- Lastly, an RFQ for the $100M-plus Bateman Physical Sciences Center H (PSH) Wing Renovation project is expected to be issued next week. (Design SOQ’s were due in August.)
Following Lyons’ activity report, Rasmussen shifted the conversation to current trends in higher education design and development. A key market component currently is a renewed commitment from universities focusing on renovation of existing structures. She said this ties in well with an overall commitment to sustainability and, while renovation is not necessarily less expensive than new development, it is more resource efficient.
Rasmussen went on to say major markets in higher education have recently slowed in terms of design consideration volumes, generally. As a result, competition among design firms for the smaller volume of projects has increased significantly, with many more submissions coming in for each new project presented than would have been the case a few years ago.
“A project we just went after that we’re shortlisted for currently had 66 submissions for design professionals,” she said, sarcastically adding, “so that’s normal.” She went on to say, “There’s a lot more competition. Hopefully, we all take this as an opportunity to raise the bar in what we deliver, how we deliver, and continue to focus on sustainability and client service.”
Because of the increased competition, she said, sustainability and client service have increased in importance as differentiating factors, adding there is a substantial learning curve for new firms looking to design and build in Arizona’s desert climate.
Saba used Rasmussen’s comments as a pivot to ask the panelists their thoughts on partnership and competition. Lyons said ASU wants strategic partnerships, including local firms with national presence. “(ASU wants) firms that are local, that we build those relationships with. The vast, vast, vast, majority of our larger projects are going to go to those strategic partners.” He added, “That’s who we’re comfortable with. They understand ASU. They’ve built that relationship where if we call them in the middle of the night, they’ll respond. They’re easier to deal with.”
Lyons added while there is opportunity for national or outside firms to come in, it may be more challenging if they are not partnered with a local firm.
Volume, Capabilities and Adaptations
In the last several months, ASU has issued a flurry of new projects. Saba asked Rasmussen how her firm deals with heavy volume from major organizations.
Rasmussen responded by saying partnership is crucial. She said Architekton has partnered with several national and international firms over the years for their particular technical or design skills, and the firm is very “strategic” and “picky” about firms when considering partnerships. She said as universities’ leadership and priorities change, designers have to consistently evaluate their own priorities and ability to respond.
When asked how ASU is handling its volume, Lyons said it is currently looking at ways to improve its staffing and processes. He said the university wants to establish a pre-construction team, as that would give project managers as much as a three-month head start on workloads versus the current process.
He added, “We had a bottleneck this year.” He expects a comparative “down period” in the next year as volumes even out.
2025 Outlooks
In wrapping up the panel portion of the event, Saba took a moment to ask Lyons and Rasmussen to describe “in one sentence” their expectations for 2025.
Lyons jokingly acknowledged he was not going to be able to abide by the content restriction. Fifty-eight sentences later, Saba summarized his response by saying it seemed his outlook was 2025 would be exceptionally busy and would feature uncertainty on many levels.
Rasmussen said the word for 2025 will be, “Transformational.” She said there has been a great deal of change in a short amount of time, particularly for Arizona and metro Phoenix.
“We’re finally hitting that moment where we can’t deny our size anymore. We can’t deny our size and our responsibility from a national perspective as the fifth largest city in the country,” she said. “I think that we will see a lot of changes that will start to take root because of that growth.”
