George Mason has added 2.5M SF to its footprint since January 2009. Facilities project management and construction director Bob Endebrook says its projects range from a 75k SF life sciences lab at the Prince William campus to a $9.5M renovation of its Fine Arts Building. The school has spent $600M adding dorms, classrooms, conference centers, parking structures, and a hotel. Bob, a former Navy civil engineer, spent decades doing the same job at military bases and says university projects aren't much different.

One of the bigger projects in the works is a 55k SF lab space addition to GMU's Science & Tech I building (cost: $54M), delivering this summer. The school is also starting a 295-bed,70k SF freshman housing facility (cost: $18M) delivering next August. West Campus Connector, a $16M underpass that connects two parts of the Fairfax campus, has also just begun; most of the funding came from VDOT, and Bob says the project will alleviate traffic at a busy intersection near the Braddock Road entrance.

With so many big projects on the books, the 32,500-student school has decided to hit the brakes on development. President Angel Cabrera started just last year and school officials don't want to raise tuition to fund more big projects, Bob says. Like many schools, GMU is grappling with how its future campus and classrooms should be designed. New buildings should last 50 or more years, but higher ed is evolving faster than that. So in the future, the school will have to answer questions such as whether 200-seat lecture halls are needed or if small rooms where a professor sits in front of a camera work better.

Down the street, Northern Virginia Community College has added 228k SF of new space in the last three years, the largest expansion in the school's history. Facilities planning director Bill Chamberlin says there were at least 10 buildings under design or construction at this time last year. That includes: an 80k SF building at the Alexandria campus set to start this year; a 40k SF higher ed center at Loudoun; a 28k SF renovation and 20k SF addition to the main administration building at Annandale; and a 75k SF academic building, also at Annandale. Bill says other buildings like the academic building he's pointing at on the Annandale campus are in major renovations. He expects the construction pace of the last few years to continue for the 76,000-student community college.