Perkins Eastman outlines $1.6'$2.4B 10-year facilities plan; board asks about priorities and net-zero design
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Summary
Perkins Eastman presented AACPS's 2025 long-range facilities master plan assessing 123 schools and recommending $1.6'$2.4 billion in priority investments over 10 years (with potential additional phases), prioritizing modernizations, capital maintenance and early-childhood conversions and urging energy-efficiency and net-zero standards for new construction.
Perkins Eastman principal Patrick Davis presented the long-range facilities master plan (FMP) to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education on Dec. 17, summarizing portfolio assessments and capital recommendations for the next decade.
Davis said the study reviewed every campus ("we looked at every single school, so a 123 schools") and estimated the replacement value of the portfolio at just over $8 billion. Partners conducted facility-condition assessments (FCI), educational-adequacy reviews and energy-use analyses and engaged stakeholders through a public web tool. He said most buildings fall in fair, good, or excellent categories, a result of prior investments, but aging systems and deferred work will require continued capital investment to avoid deterioration.
Recommendations include a 10-year priority-investment range of $1.6 billion to $2.4 billion (phase 1) with a potential phase 2 adding roughly $1.1'$1.7 billion depending on timing and escalation. Priority categories are major building modernizations and replacements, capital maintenance (system replacements aggregated into projects), and early-childhood-conversion projects to address pre-K demand. Davis highlighted that maintaining the district's "modified age" of buildings requires roughly the equivalent of an elementary and a middle-school modernization per year.
Board members asked about project ordering and the role of feasibility studies; Davis said phase and priority sequencing would be set through feasibility studies and the capital-improvement (CIP) process. Specific questions focused on Glen Burnie High School and Southern High School building conditions, equity across clusters, and geographic distribution of early-childhood seats. Staff noted Old Mill North as an active project with potential to be the district's first net-zero building under current bidding.
Davis also urged continued investment in energy-efficiency and preventative maintenance; he noted a 30% districtwide energy-use reduction since 2013 and recommended emphasizing sustainable systems in replacements and new construction to lower long-term operating costs.
Next steps: The plan will inform CIP prioritization and feasibility studies; staff and board members will consider funding trade-offs, potential grants, and timing via the capital process.