Overview

The NIH Bethesda Campus currently utilizes facilities dating back to 1923. Of the nearly 13.5 million net assignable square feet (SF) of research and administration building space, one-half requires renovation at levels ranging from complete demolition (1.2 million SF); substantial improvement (3.5 million SF); and safety code required remodeling (2 million SF). The underground utilities that service 98 buildings need maintenance and upgrades to prevent critical disruptions of water, heat, electricity, and communications.

Over the past nearly 100 years, the campus has seen many changes. Starting with a few small buildings originally, the campus now includes approximately 98 buildings totaling 13.5 million square SF of facilities and 20 miles of underground utilities having a current replacement value of $7.5 billion. These facilities are located on a 310-acre mixed-use campus that includes roadways, walkways, parking structures, and significant green spaces to buffer the campus from surrounding neighbors.

Sixteen of the campus facilities are in such a deteriorated condition that they are recommended for demolition. These facilities account for approximately 1.2 million SF, of which approximately 40 percent is laboratory and 60 percent administrative space. Another 3.5 million SF are in need of substantive improvement, maintenance, and repair to perform their defined service. Another 2 million SF are in need of attention to improve comfort and power systems, weather tightness, and code and life safety issues. The balance of 6.7 million SF, about half of the total square footage of the campus's built environment, are in reasonably serviceable condition and are fit for their assigned uses. The 20 miles of underground utilities and their sources have an array of problems needing significant attention to sustain and support the 98 buildings they serve.

Over the last two decades, NIH has expended slightly over $4.1 billion (Figure 4.1) from its Buildings and Facilities (B&F) appropriation on new, renovated, and updated buildings and safety and support of its built environment. Approximately $2.3 billion of that is for construction-related activity. These activities include constructing new buildings; reconfiguring existing spaces to accommodate new services; repairing existing space and structure, including safety, power, and comfort systems; and restoring deteriorating interior and exterior structural features. The planning and implementation of this volume of work has been overseen by a qualified internal team that is required to justify and prioritize needs, advocate for funding, and execute structural changes around fully operational laboratories in a highly regulated and sensitive patient and animal care activity.

FIGURE 4.1

Buildings and Facilities funding, 1998 to 2018. SOURCE: National Institutes of Health, Office of Research Facilities.

Since 1998, significant appropriations have contributed to the campus and its mission. Figure 4.1 shows the use of the funding and illustrates that most of the funding came from a few large special appropriations that were dedicated to major construction projects. These projects are briefly described here:

• The Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center was completed in 2000. This 140,000 SF lab and research building is dedicated to vaccine research; its primary mission has been HIV/AIDS research.
• In 2001, the Louis Stokes Laboratory was completed. This building introduced the concept of research “neighborhoods” to the campus. This 6-story, 565,459 SF building provides 250,000 SF of state-of-the-art laboratory, office, and conference facilities for scientists from nine NIH institutes.
• The Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center was completed in 2004 and added 620,000 SF of inpatient hospital treatment space and day-hospital space and 240,000 SF of laboratory space. Along with the clinical space, two family care facilities were provided.
• The original Porter Neuroscience Research Center was completed in 2004 and provided 600,000 SF of research space housing for personnel from seven different institutes.
• In 2007, the C.W. Bill Young Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases opened with 84,000 SF of research building and parking facilities for over 2000 vehicles.¹
• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 provided $500 million for B&F expansion and repair of NIH facilities. This allowed for phase II of the Porter Neuroscience Research Center to be constructed. This added 306,000 SF of integrated laboratory and research space when completed in 2014.

Since 2000, just under 3 million SF of laboratories have been added to the campus. This accounts for 45 percent of all lab space on campus. During this time, several smaller buildings were constructed to house families, support operations, improve security, and improve energy efficiency, sustainability, and utility distribution, including the following:

• The Center for Information Technology Data Center, which was upgraded to increase data storage and transmission speed, as well as weather and disruption sustainability.
• A Thermal Energy Storage system program, storing water that is chilled after-hours, was commissioned in 2018 to significantly enhance the efficiency and reliability of the Central Utility Plant.
• The E and F wings of the original Building 10, about 500,000 SF of hospital converted to lab space use.

Funding for Capital Projects

NIH funding is appropriated each fiscal year through the appropriations process. The budget formulation process occurs each June through December, in which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) prepares a budget—as do the other agencies and departments—in consultation with and pursuant to circulars and procedures of the Office of Management and Budget. The resulting President's Budget Request is submitted to Congress in February or later of the following year. Thereafter, HHS develops Congressional Justifications, which include details of the NIH request for B&F funds 2 years into the future.

Funding for capital projects comes from a number of sources, including the B&F line item in the Congressional appropriation noted above; a nonrecurring expense fund (NEF), from the HHS; and onetime appropriations. (The funding appropriated for NIH does not ring-fence or otherwise separate capital budget dollars from operating budget dollars.) NIH is further able to direct monies from operating funds of individual institutes (using what is known as the special authority, a reference to its origin in the appropriations bills) or from centrally administered funds such as the Capital Improvement Fund using deposits from the institutes and centers' (ICs) appropriated funds.

The B&F line item has been constant for many years, at roughly $120 million (see Figure 4.1). These funds are intended to support the mission through facilities maintenance and repair. The NEF competes with the needs of other agencies within HHS. Special one-time appropriations come from Congress for various reasons or in support of a defined need, including, most recently the ARRA funds in 2009.

IRP Facilities Are a Mix of Recently Built and Past-Their-Prime Buildings

The Master Plan (NIH ORF, 2013) identifies 16 buildings scheduled for demolition. Of these, 12 are predominantly for laboratory use. These buildings were built in the 1940s and 1950s. Their condition, shape, and utility render them more costly to renovate than to replace. Specifically, the floor-to-floor height of the existing structures is insufficient to support the significant duct work and ventilation systems and other power, water, and data needs. This accounts for 477,457 SF (7.5 percent) of total laboratory space on campus. This specifically includes a major portion of the animal facilities, a major contributor to the testing and research done in early clinical trials.

The other 4 buildings in this list are primarily administrative space and account for 743,482 SF (43.5 percent) of available administrative space.

Since 2000, 2,900,000 SF feet of laboratory space have been added to the campus. This accounts for 45 percent of total lab space on campus. An additional 982,000 SF of parking structure, housing, and support facilities have been added. This represents approximately 28 percent of the campus. Said another way, 72 percent of the campus is over 20 years old.

An additional 1.1 million SF of space have seen significant renovation or reuse. Notably, 765,911 SF of laboratory space have been renovated or reconfigured to support benchtop science. An example of this is the E and F wings of Building 10, which were converted from hospital function to lab function.

NIH BMAR and Facility Condition Index and the Degree to Which Maintenance Backlog Is or Is Not Part of the Decision Making Process

NIH's Backlog of Maintenance and Repair (BMAR) is developed each year under contract with an outside consultant, who maintains an extensive database of all building system conditions and life cycle cost data to ensure that when each component has reached the end of useful life, the renewable costs are generated automatically into the BMAR calculations. The BMAR is updated each October based on the contractor's database and adjusted according to a review of any repairs and renovations that occurred since the previous year. Additionally, each April, an escalation factor is added to the BMAR totals, ranging between 2 and 4 percent. The process for determining each year's specific escalation factor was not provided to the committee, but the amounts seem reasonable.

NIH also incurs costs that do not effectively reduce the BMAR. These include the following: (1) emergency repairs (often due to the age of the facilities); (2) change orders—for unforeseen conditions discovered during renovation and specific aging systems that are impacted by attaching upgraded systems; (3) environmental—the age of the facilities also contributes to significant costs for remediating hazardous materials such as asbestos, lead, and laboratory contaminants such as mercury; and (4) mission support—NIH often needs to conduct repairs and improvements to support new scientific equipment. Combined, these factors often consume a large portion of funding, leaving the balance available to reduce BMAR. In the past, NIH tracked only the Condition Index (CI) and BMAR associated with buildings; recently, it began including infrastructure in the Central Utility Plant (CUP, Building 11 in Figure 4.2) and horizontal site infrastructure (chilled water, steam, fire protection, and electrical power distribution) in those calculations (NIH, 2018a).

The BMAR Reduction Plan for the campus is reported to include the following (NIH, 2018a):

• A combination of capital projects that are already funded but not yet calculated as a reduction;
• Planned capital projects that are developed and shown on the 5-year B&F Plan;³
• Capital projects that need to be planned and funded based on their level of CI, type of facility, and level of risk;
• Mothballed facilities that require modest investment to maintain; and
• Targeted projects to existing facilities for recurring large maintenance issues, emergency issues, and major repairs (based on the 5-year B&F Plan for repair and improvements).

The BMAR is used to create the Asset CI defined by the condition assessment contractor as follows:⁴

The ORF provided the committee with a listing of all facilities managed at the various NIH properties. This facility list was filtered to include only the Bethesda Campus and is included as Appendix F. The Bethesda facility list includes the facility number, use, year constructed, size, replacement value, BMAR, and condition index. The BMAR is $1.3 billion (on a replacement value for those same facilities and infrastructure of $7.5 billion). The average Condition Index of NIH buildings is 83.3, which is among the lowest in the federal government (see Figure 4.4). As a reference, the International Facility Management Association CI index rating system would consider a rating of 83.3 as “poor.” Figure 4.4 shows the relative comparison of the NIH CI compared to many other federal agencies.

FIGURE 4.4

Condition Index (CI; aggregate) of various federal agencies and departments. SOURCE: NIH, 2018, Backlog of Maintenance and Repair (BMAR) Reduction Plan, Bethesda, Md., January 5, 2018.

Table 4.5 categorizes facilities by CI; the committee developed this table from the data provided by the ORF. Of the 98 facilities on the Bethesda Campus, 58 have a CI rating of poor (<90) or critical (<70). Half of the campus's total SF is rated at poor or critical and has an average facility age of 59 years for facilities rated poor and 61 years for those rated critical. This compares to an average age of 37 years and 44 years for the facilities rated good or fair, respectively. NIH reports that its goal is to raise the CI above 90 for all campus facilities. Table 4.6 shows how many facilities would be each CI category were the 16 facilities slated for demolition in the Master Plan to be removed.

TABLE 4.5

Facilities of NIH Bethesda Campus Sorted by Condition Index.

TABLE 4.6

Facilities of NIH Bethesda Campus Sorted by Condition Index, with 16 Buildings Demolished per the 2013 Master Plan.

Risk to Research and Patient Care Created by Outages and Disruptions

The NIH presented information⁵ that provided the current project score process, called the B&F Project Prioritization Model for fiscal year (FY) 2019-2023 and based on a total possible score of 1,000. The scoring process assigns a potential 222 points out of the 1,000 total, or 22.2 percent of the score to the building systems' risk of failure impacting life safety and critical mission functions. The Facilities Working Group (FWG) subjectively scores the risk for each project. There is no campus-wide risk assessment process that quantifies the impacts to research and patient care for each facility and facility system. This is discussed further in Chapter 5.

The NIH facilities at the Bethesda Campus have experienced various system failures in the past several years. During the committee's inspection of various buildings accompanied by members of the NIH ORF staff described several failures of plumbing distribution systems that resulted in flooding to laboratories and operating rooms. NIH did not provide any comprehensive historical reporting (e.g., frequency, system, type of failure, and resulting impacts) of these failures from the Computerized Maintenance Management System such as might support a more comprehensive risk assessment process.

Portions of a presentation⁶ included information on the Building 10 Complex. This was the only example provided of using condition assessment data to develop the risk assessment. Data for the 2011 facilities condition assessment rated the mechanical systems, the electrical systems, and the functionality and quantity of space. There were no research or patient care impacts identified in this presentation.

Finding: NIH does not have a formalized risk assessment process across the facilities portfolio that measures and ranks facilities or facility systems from historical operations and maintenance records. The facility condition assessment process generates the BMAR, which identifies the associated level of risk to personnel, patients, and research created by potential outages and disruptions of facility systems.

Building Process and Monies Available or Used

The B&F account is one of 27 accounts for which the dollar amount is controlled by Congress (see the section “Funding for Capital Projects,” above). B&F funds are 5-year appropriations, meaning that they can be carried over into subsequent fiscal years, something that is critically important for acquisition of capital projects. Funds are allotted per quarter based on requests typically weighted to second and third quarter (Q2 and Q3). FY 2018 funding was $128 million, roughly consistent with immediate past years.

The FY 2019 B&F funding request was $200 million; this amount was appropriated. Complementing the B&F account, episodic one-time increases have occurred historically based on specific events such as Biodefense (2003) and ARRA (2009) (see Figure 4.1, above).⁷ Congress typically appropriates the amount requested for the B&F account in the President's budget.

The so-called special authority is revisited from time to time. Originally, as part of the NIH FY 2007 Appropriation Act,⁸ Congress authorized NIH to spend IC operating funds of up to $2,500,000 per project to cover costs associated with altering, repairing, or improving NIH facilities. A similar provision was included in the FY 2009 President's budget request, limiting the total IC operating funds expenditures for renovations, alterations, and repairs to no more than $35,000,000 for the year. From 2008 to 2011, ORF spent an average of $21.7 million per year of IC funds on repairs and improvements.⁹ A majority of these funds have been spent on specific needs and requests by individual ICs for their spaces. Each year, specific capital projects are presented to the NIH Office of the Director and to the department-level (HHS) entities concerned with facilities and finance for consideration for approval and funding through Facility Project Approval Agreements.

The FY 2012 Omnibus Appropriation Act, Section 216, changed the ceiling on the amount of funds appropriated to the ICs that could be used for alteration, repair, or improvement of facilities to $45,000,000, not to exceed $3,500,000 per project. From 2012 to 2018, ORF spent an average of $37.2 million per year of IC funds on repairs and improvements.¹⁰ NIH describes the potential uses of such funds “that count against the ceiling” as follows:

• Renovations to all office, laboratory, clinical, animal, research, or support space that involve new drywall or masonry partitions, installed doors, ceilings, lighting, and permanent flooring or the reconfiguration of such;
• Alterations that change the use or function of existing program space (i.e., office-to-lab, lab-to-office, lab-to-animal room, etc.);
• Infrastructure repair work that is directly impacted by IC renovations or alterations; and
• Architect and Engineer design and inspection costs.

Examples of project-related costs that do not count against the $3.5 million ceiling include the following:

• Pre-project planning and pre-design studies (studies and Program of Requirements)
• Fee for Service work
• Furniture or furnishings
• Carpet and window coverings
• Casework and counter tops
• Special purpose equipment such as IC scientific instrumentation, CT scanners and work directly incident to such.¹¹

Congress authorized use of the NEF for capital acquisitions related to information technology (IT) and facilities infrastructure. ORF has explored and requested the use of NEF for the past 4 years with success in FY 2015 ($10 million), FY 2016 ($162 million), and FY 2017 ($52 million), as illustrated in Figure 4.5. No funds were made available in FY 2018.

FIGURE 4.5

NIH funding levels for facilities (1988-2018). This includes the appropriated Buildings and Facilities (B&F) account, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, and funds made available from HHS through the nonrecurring expense (more...)

The Division of Facilities, Operations, and Maintenance (DFOM) is responsible for the safe, efficient, and effective operation and maintenance of NIH real property. The annual budget originates from the ICs' appropriated funds in the following manner: ICs are charged rent based on the NASF plus common areas for laboratory space ($42 per square foot [/SF]), administrative space ($22/SF), and animal facility ($34.61/SF). These funds are used to fund the ORF operating budget, which includes facilities maintenance. The FY 2017 DFOM annual budget (Table 4.7) was $105.6 million for general operations and maintenance, minor repairs and replace in kind (not to exceed $75,000 each), and maintenance service contracts (there are approximately 70 such contracts for janitorial, elevators, building automation, grounds maintenance, emergency generators, air balancing, and other services including labor and materials). For FY 2018, the operation and maintenance obligations for Maryland campuses were respectively $71.7 million and $42.1 million, for a total of $113.8 million.¹² Operations would include, for example, operation of Central Utility Plant; grounds maintenance, including snow removal; and custodial services.

TABLE 4.7

NIH-Bethesda Facilities Maintenance Budget Fiscal Year 2017.

Facility managers for each building manage the day-to-day work associated with operating a building. Branch chiefs are responsible for service areas such as Building 10, the remaining Bethesda Campus, other Maryland campuses (e.g., Bayside in Baltimore) and those in Research Triangle Park (NIEHS) and Rocky Mountain Laboratory (NIAID). A Project Contract Team can do specific project work if the project is valued under $75,000 or in emergencies. DFOM can do in-house engineering design for work that requires a quick turnaround such as during emergencies. All other work requiring engineering that is nonemergency and over $75,000 must be transferred to Design and Construction for B&F funding.

Project Dashboard

NIH shared its project needs in a document titled “400 Project Dashboard,”¹³ outlining projects for maintenance and repair. This list includes 440 lines of project descriptions and estimates of cost, and it categorizes the projects in a number of ways. The list is generated by the staff who are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the facilities and in some cases the design and construction planning team (see Table 4.8).

TABLE 4.8

Project Dashboard (Excerpt).

The committee determined that a number of the categories in Table 4.8 would fall under the heading of “long-term infrastructure” because they are building-agnostic and address campus-wide improvements. If one subtracts the estimates for new buildings ($1.7 billion) and off-site campuses ($209 million) from the total of $3.082 billion, the remaining balance ($1.2 billion) approximates the BMAR values ($1.3 billion) discussed above—an equivalence that further validates the need for this level of investment to sustain these facilities.

As noted, a number of these categories are campus infrastructure and essentially building-agnostic. These categories comprise systems (labeled above as long-term infrastructure) that are needed both to sustain the existing facilities and to support any future campus facilities. Should these systems not get the attention that they need, then the current facilities will not be supported regardless of their individual condition. The committee believes that these systems and the approximately $700 million in repairs and improvements associated with them in Table 4.8 must be addressed. The remaining $600 million in BMAR represents specific systems in specific buildings. The committee believes these also need to be addressed but should be considered in light of the comprehensive Master Plan and its approval. As each building's future designation is determined, the associated BMAR should be funded to support that designation. For example, the Combined Utility Plant on the Bethesda Campus has completed many upgrade projects in recent years to make the plant more efficient and sustainable. These upgrades generated cost savings and have increased the reliability of generation systems. In 2013, a dedicated “Utility Distribution Branch” was created to focus explicitly on the utility distribution systems. Recent upgrades include major power, steam, and condensate distribution lines and new walkable utility distribution tunnels. In addition, this branch has instituted Geographic Information System tracking of utility assets and nondestructive testing (such as infrared or ultrasonic testing) to detect leaks.¹⁴ Based on the age and condition of those distribution systems, the committee believes it is imperative that NIH continue to focus funding on those projects to realize the efficiencies and reliability of the Central Utility Plant.

Many of these estimates have been included in previous Master Plan projects but on a piecemeal basis to support the individual needs of each requested facility. This scattershot method of separate requests leads to inefficiency in planning, procurement, and implementation. For example, decoupling the funding and ability to implement the infrastructure projects as a systematic restoration/upgrade program from individual Master Plan projects can improve current levels of service and sustainability, while simplifying the planning and implementation of system upgrades. These infrastructure projects can be implemented faster than the more complicated development of individual laboratory and support structures because they can be designed and procured in advance of specific building projects. By procuring these systems independently, a more appropriate procurement can be developed to utilize utility contractors rather than facility specialist contractors.