GUILFORD, Conn., April 30, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sightlines, a leader in helping academic institutions better manage their facilities and capital investment strategies, is now offering a fully integrated capital planning service for colleges and universities that is designed around an institution's unique mission, operations and finances.
"Capital budgets at higher education institutions nationwide remain below pre-recession levels and, if the current trends hold, funding will likely remain below historical facilities investment amounts for some time," said David Kadamus, founder and executive chairman of Sightlines. "Our comprehensive Building Portfolio Solutions help campus executive teams to set priorities with a multi-year capital plan that supports their mission and mitigates facilities and financial risk."
Historically, facilities assessments have delivered very large and comprehensive lists of facilities needs. However, they have often been presented in a way that makes the solving the problem seem financially unrealistic and therefore paralyzes the decision making process. The Sightlines approach segments the backlog to better support the institution's mission. With smaller and more manageable portfolios, senior leadership can then create investment strategies that target investments, support program and create measureable impact for each dollar invested.
There are four steps in Sightlines' Building Portfolio Solutions workflow:
Step 1: Integrate Capital Needs -- the technical assessment is supplemented with operator input, other existing studies, master plans and modernization needs.
Step 2: Create Building Portfolios -- developing building portfolios allows the formation of unique investment strategies that tie to institutional strategy and mission.
Step 3: Develop Multi-Year Capital Plan -- with portfolios in place, Sightlines supports resource allocation and the creation of a capital investment plan.
Step 4: Project Selection -- a combination of art and science, investment strategies that tie technical issues to mission and finance reduce the number of politically motivated decisions and allow facilities leaders to create constituency and manage change.
"Our clearly defined, four-step process guides higher ed executives in identifying, approving and executing project investments," said Kadamus. "We differentiate repairs from modernization and alteration projects, propose investments to complement an institution's strategic goals, and align investment needs to financial capacity by clearly explaining the sequencing and timing of individual building investments. The result is a comprehensive building portfolio assessment that benchmarks needs and puts the institution on a positive direction moving forward."
For more information, please go to www.sightlines.com.
About Sightlines
Founded in 2000, Sightlines gives colleges and universities the independent data and perspective they need to make critical decisions about their most valuable assets – their facilities. Sightlines stewards the industry's most extensive verified database, allowing more than 450 institutions across the U.S. and Canada to benchmark an institution's facilities against universities and colleges across the nation. Sightlines' flagship offering for members is ROPA+, a fully integrated solution for facilities intelligence that leads members through a comprehensive process of discovery, prediction and performance measurement. Other Sightlines solutions provide higher ed executives with insights to assist with capital planning, space management and campus sustainability initiatives. For more information, please call 203.682.4952, go to http://www.sightlines.com or email insights@sightlines.com.