Higher Ed Leaders Discuss Projects, Process and Plans

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX – BEXclusive

The Higher Education session of the BEX Leading Market Series is always one of the year’s best attended, and 2025 proved no exception.

The audience for the Dec. 16 event was treated to a panel moderated by Cassie Saba, Arizona Higher Education Construction Core Market Lead at event sponsor DPR Construction, and comprised of:

• Diane Jacobs, Founder of Holly Street Studio;
• Stephen Schierenberg, Director – Office of University Architect at Arizona State University, and
• Joshua Wright, Chief Facilities Planning Officer at University of Arizona.

Panelists, Projects and Planning

One of the unusual features of the higher education LMS is the panelists’ introductions and presentations often take up more of the one-hour session than the question and answer period, and Wednesday’s event followed the pattern.

After a brief introduction from Saba, Schierenberg took the lectern and launched quickly into an overview of ASU’s current major projects and upcoming capital improvements list. He named, in order of priority, seven major items for Fiscal Year 2026:

• PSH Research Laboratory Complex Modernization – $115M,
• Polytechnic Student Union Expansion – $66M,
• Central Plant Transformer and Switchgear Replacement – $15M,
• McCain National Library (aka McCain Center) – $187M,
• ASU Health Building – $200M,
• East Athletic Village Tennis, Track and Field Facilities – $51M and
• MTW Partnership Renovations – $42M.

He then gave an overview of upcoming high-value projects for FY 2027-FY 2030, consisting of:

• ASU Football Practice Facility – $35M,
• ASU Desert Financial Arena Renovation (Formerly Wells Fargo Arena) – $100M and
• Center Complex Project – $30M.

Also included in the CIP are building and infrastructure enhancements and modifications ($45M), classroom and academic renovations ($25M), research laboratory renovations ($30M) and IT Infrastructure Improvements ($47M).

After Schierenberg, Wright took over to discuss projects and plans for UA.

He began by talking about the university’s ongoing work to update its Campus Master Plan, detailing vision and projects targeted for the next 10 years. The document’s last update was in 2009. The new version is expected in the spring, and Wright asked for input from the development community to optimize the plan’s quality and feasibility.

Wright then presented some of UA’s recently completed major projects, including:

• Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine – $23M,
• Grand Challenges Research Building – $99M,
• Applied Research Building – $85M and
• Student Success District – $81M.

UA has two major ongoing construction projects at the moment: UA Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies (aka CAMI), with a budget of $232M, and UA Arizona Public Media (aka AZPM) Facility, which has a budget of $63M.

Wright explained under the 2027-2030 UA Capital Improvement Plan, much of the focus is on addressing deferred maintenance and renovating and optimizing existing spaces. Among the deferred maintenance to be addressed and the spaces to be renovated are:

• Athletics Deferred Maintenance and Infrastructure Upgrades,
• Student Experience and Student Union Memorial Center Upgrades,
• Arizona State Museum South Renovations,
• Campus Housing,
• Campus Infrastructure Improvements,
• Deferred Maintenance and Lab Modernizations and
• Fine Arts Master Plan Implementation.

He noted flexibility is a key component of UA’s future planning, and new buildings to be developed will largely fall under a mixed-use heading, taking up a larger footprint but offering a range of services instead of serving a single purpose.

Many of the specific projects coming up will fall under the university’s job order contracting program. Wright reminded the attendees that UA’s next JOC solicitation will be issued in 2027.

When Wright finished, Jacobs took up the microphone not to list an expansive overview of Holly Street’s project sheet, but to talk about the firm’s dedication to partnership, vision and resilience. As a firm with a major devotion to adaptive reuse and renovation, Jacobs is excited about the opportunity to optimize and revitalize existing facilities to meet new challenges.

Encapsulating that vision, Jacobs said, “Some of the projects don’t seem very glamorous at first…, but it’s about bringing back joy and dignity to some of these tired spaces.”

The Q&A

Once the overviews were wrapped up, Saba got approval to let the program run slightly past its one-hour allotment to ensure the panel had an opportunity for a question and answer period.

She asked the panelists to speak to their biggest concerns when planning renovations. Wright went first, expressing a dual set of challenges. He said the structural challenges of facility age, infrastructure and physical systems always present issues, since the as-built result never perfectly matches the original plans, but a greater challenge is making sure the purpose is clear and keeping the question of, “What (specific) problem are we trying to solve?” at the forefront.

Jacobs echoed that and said the greatest challenge for her as an architect is “the unknowns” that always arise when implementing a renovation vision. She urged the attendees to lean into the investigative portion of the planning process to identify as many potential hurdles as they can and to always plan for as many contingencies as possible.

Schierenberg concurred and said it is essential to build flexibility into the process to mitigate the impacts of the unexpected.

Saba then arrived at what has become a standard feature at LMS events and asked the panel what they need from their planning and building partners and the development community as collaborators.

Schierenberg asked the room to ensure they not only tell their clients and partners about problems they encounter with a project, but to bring solutions for those challenges.

He also said more attention and resources need to be directed at projects’ final stages. “Put more people on closeout,” he said, saying it is always difficult to bring a building online and then weather the questions and pushback that come from end-users encountering punch list items.

Speaking from the other side of the planning process, Jacobs said owners need to ensure transparency, empower flexibility and be open to creativity from their design and building partners because they may have solutions to a problem that fall outside the boxed-in, linear thinking that flows across a set of checkboxes.

BEX’s next event will be the 2026 Construction Activity Forecast. To accommodate the expected attendance, there will be two identical sessions—one on Jan. 28 and a repeat on Feb. 4.