Gerald Morgan: [00:00:00] The other thing we're looking at is, uh, classroom space. We, you know, we've, we've had the data from the registrar, but, the story that that data doesn't tell. It tells us how many people are enrolled for a class. But I think you know where I'm headed with this. Yeah. It doesn't tell us who's attending online and who's attending in person.
Aaron Benz: How can you remove 25 buildings? Reduce your capital renewal by 154 million and save $6 million of opex every year. On this Bow Tie Tuesday, I am pleased that Gerald Morgan has joined me from the University of Missouri 'cause they've done exactly that over the last several years, and we get to hear a little bit more about that story.
Gerald, welcome. Gerald's, the Director of Space Management and Client Relations at University of Missouri. Welcome to Bow Tie Tuesday.
Gerald Morgan: Aaron, thank you so much for having me.
Aaron Benz: So you, you know, you've talked a little bit about, of course I'm a, you know, data geek. But getting kinda your [00:01:00] space inventory up to date you know, I don't know how many more buildings it's even possible to kind of demo to them, reduce capital renewal.
Right? But, um, you know, I, I don't know, maybe there's a few more or not, but how are you thinking about, okay, now we're at this new place, right? We've reduced 150 million of capital renewal. We've reduced 6 million of opex. These are some, some really. Uh, some really big numbers that, that I'm, you all should be proud of, right?
Absolutely. What, what does it look like now, kind of going forward, right? So we've massive lift and shift, let's say operation, right? Take some stuff off, have some real wins. How are those wins funding? What, what, what, what comes in the future?
Gerald Morgan: Yeah. So, you know, we, we've got several projects underway, um, that will create some new modern research.
And administrative space on campus. And it's, it's going to be built on the site of where several of the buildings that we took down were removed. So, you know, we, we [00:02:00] created some really great building sites and we also created some green space that wasn't there before. Mm-hmm. And, and the students have liked that as well.
But yeah, that's, you know, that, that's the, the thing is we know we have to reinvest this not in as much square footage, so we're not doing a a net zero thing here,
Aaron Benz: right?
Gerald Morgan: You know, we've reduced 751,000 gross square foot. We've got another a hundred thousand in the queue that we're hoping to do in the next two to three, maybe four years.
But since that time, we've added about 440,000 gross square foot of new purpose-driven space. So again, it's more efficient space. It's better. It, it supports new pedagogies, right? It it does all, it's more flexible. It does all of those things that these older buildings just couldn't do, even with a major renovation because of the structural systems or whatever the case may be.
So we're, we're, we're seeing sort of this renewal of [00:03:00] space that way. And then again. How do we take more buildings down? Well, it, right now it's really hard because the low hanging fruit is not there longer. Right. We right, you got it. You picked it. We got it. Being able to use new technologies I think is gonna be something that's gonna be really helpful for us.
And so, you know, the, the types of services that your company provides where we can now harness the power of a Wi-Fi system in a building that's already there. And use that to get data on how space is being used. Yet the data is anonymized, which is awesome because that's always been a concern here, is that we don't want to be big brother.
We don't wanna freak students out or yeah faculty out that we're watching their every move. Well, I think what your company has done is created a system where all of that can be done with little to no hardware, which is awesome. You know, just using existing infrastructure. And so we're kind of excited about the [00:04:00] possibility of, of harnessing those types of technologies to help us because, again, now it's, it's just so much harder to evaluate space because the low hanging fruit is gone. The stuff that is obvious to us from walking through buildings in the past, well, that's all done. So we're, we're excited about, where technology is, is going and, and the, the options that we have moving forward.
Aaron Benz: That's awesome. One of the things that I, I think heard a lot in your story, right, is how do we build more purpose-built buildings? How are you thinking about how you design buildings where it's kind of, or, you know, are refurbishing buildings, where, let's say FICM codes, right? Or last time those classifications were updated was 2006, right? Yeah. It's been a while. The iPhone came out in 2007. Maybe the world's changed a little bit. Right. You know, we lost, used to have lots of, private individual offices. Now we have all these new concepts of what is, [00:05:00] you know, hoteling or touchdown spaces or all these things
I mean, have you, how have you all thought about even your other existing spaces or even for new spaces of how are you trying to adapt to how people work today that is different than maybe how people were thinking 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Uh, right. Or more.Gerald Morgan: So, yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
I mean, when it comes to faculty offices, I will, I will tell you this that's something that was sort of untouchable in the first phase of the space reduction that we did. Because what, what I was told when we started looking at space overall, I was told, listen, at the University of Missouri, um we don't have some of the advantages that maybe some other schools have that are trying to hire the same researchers, that we're trying to hire the same faculty. So one of the things that we're, we're not budging on is we're gonna, part of the package for faculty or researcher is you're gonna get an office and it's gonna be [00:06:00] on the core campus.
And so we really sort of neglected faculty office space and we, we focused on staff, staff office space as well as classrooms and, and a little bit of research, but we, we sort of stayed away from research space as well. But now we're, we're, we're looking at everything. Right. Um, now I, I will be honest, I would be shocked if anybody agreed that, you know, we change our, change our policy in terms of faculty offices? I don't think we will, but I, I do think what we're looking at and talking about is, hey, some of the newer faculty members offices aren't as important to them as, like, I, I, I'm, I've been here 32 years. I'm an old guy. I love my office because it's just, it, it's so kind of, it's what you work towards and you finally get that office and you wanna hang onto it.
Right? Right. But could I do what I do without a, a fixed or could I do it in a shared office or, you know, an, an [00:07:00] open office space? Yeah. I, I really, I could, you provide spaces where private conversations can be had. Yeah. And that could be shared or whatever. And so we're looking at different ways to do that.
The other thing we're looking at is, uh, classroom space. We, you know, we've, we've had the data from the registrar, but the story that that data doesn't tell. It tells us how many people are enrolled for a class. But I think you know where I'm headed with this. Yeah. It doesn't tell us who's attending online and who's attending in person.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Gerald Morgan: So you've got 150 students in a class and we give 'em an auditorium that seats 170. Yeah. And maybe on Friday there's 50 kids that came in person. Yeah. And everybody else is online.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Gerald Morgan: So we have to be able to get a grip on how that space is being utilized. Yeah. As well with, because hybrid classes I don't think are going away.
I, I think they're really popular with students and it gives them options. And honestly, I, I wish I would've had that [00:08:00] option when I was in college. So I, I don't think those are going away. And we've got hybrid office situations as well, so we need to get a grip and we're working on that. You know, who's working?
Partially from home, who's working full-time from home, who's working full-time in the office, and then how do you apportion the spaces to reasonably accommodate the needs without wasting space? Right. And that's what we're trying to get a grip on right now. Or,
Aaron Benz: or create new incentives. That didn't make sense 20 years ago.
'cause no one was working that way 20 years ago. Right? True, true. Um, where yeah, every square foot matters. Gerald, this has been awesome. I love your all's story. I, I'm loving what you all are doing up there at, at Missouri and can't wait to see what's next. Thanks so much for joining. It's been a real pleasure on this Bow Tie Tuesday and looking forward to, whenever our next chat is.
Gerald Morgan: Yeah. A a again, thank you for having me. And, um, just, uh, for everybody out there, if anybody has interest or wants more detail, um, they can certainly reach out to me. I, [00:09:00] I love to share my story with, uh, anybody who wants to listen, Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
Aaron Benz: Absolutely. My pleasure.
Gerald Morgan: All right.