Part 2: Why Are Facility Assessments Important?
Facility assessments are important because they’re the starting point for your future building project. They will help you answer three important questions:
- What does my district or municipality already have?
- What’s worth investing in?
- How do we move forward?
How will they help me?
Having a study document in hand will help your district or municipality make the most informed decisions about how to prioritize the work that needs to be done.
Facility assessments are a good method of due diligence. It’s still a good idea to conduct a facility assessment even if your planning team already has a good idea of the work that needs to happen. Your taxpayers will appreciate having the assessment as evidence to support any decisions to renovate or expand your existing facilities.
For publicly funded projects, facility assessments can be a tool to decide whether a referendum is appropriate. If it is, the study document will be a helpful companion for showing your community that the proposed improvements are necessary for your schools.
Many districts share the final study documents with their community via their website. Don’t worry – no one will need a PhD in construction technology to understand our study documents. We ensure that they’re easy to read and understand, complete with quick-fact summaries and plenty of visuals to illustrate our findings.
When’s the best time for a facility assessment?
While there’s never a wrong time to have a facility assessment, here are two indicators that suggest your assessment should happen sooner rather than later.
Change in district or city population
If the number of students or residents in your district or municipality is significantly growing or declining, it’s a good idea to complete a facility assessment in preparation for adding or consolidating buildings.
Aging Facilities
No building lasts forever, and you may already know that some of your buildings are at the end of their lifespans. The facility assessment will help you identify which buildings need the most immediate attention, and which ones are the best candidates for renovation or demolition.
It’s important to note that our observations are not a direct reflection of your teams or their work. Even with proper maintenance, it is inevitable that buildings and their associated systems will wear with time and use.
We are here as your trusted partner to guide you through the facility assessment process so that you can make informed decisions about your building project.
Bray is here to help
Keeping track of your buildings’ condition isn’t an easy task. We know that every district or municipality has a different level of resources to do this. We are here to deliver a clear, professional evaluation of your facilities.
In the next section, we’ll dive a bit further into process of completing a facility assessment.
Read Part 3: The Facility Assessment Process
Be sure to also check out:
Part 1: What is a facility assessment?
Watch our 90-second video on facility assessments
Featured image, top: Bray’s facilities assessment for the Neenah Joint School District identified significant needs throughout the district, but especially at the middle school and high school buildings. The assessment supported the district’s decision to construct a new high school building, above, and renovate their existing high school building to support 5th-8th grades.
