AVE MARIA UNIVERSITY

Ave Maria University began as Thomas S. Monaghan’s dream to build an institution of Catholic higher education is South Florida. Through his initial financial donation of $250 million, in partnership with a generous donation of land from the Barron Collier Family in Southwest Florida, the dream began to take shape.

In August 2003, Ave Maria University opened the doors of its interim campus in The Vineyards in Naples, Florida, for its first academic year, but the ultimate goal was to construct a completely new campus (along with an accompanying municipality), where no development currently existed in rural Southwest Florida. From the beginning, the developers of the University realized that this was not only a true “green field” site from a construction standpoint, but it was also a Greenfield site from the viewpoint of campus facilities management operations. Normally, when a University constructs new facilities, the operation of these new facilities is merely added on to the existing FM organizations platter or responsibilities.

The construction of Ave Maria University presented a unique set of challenges and rare opportunities. Not only was a new campus and town being created from scratch, the entire operational set-up also had to be developed from the bottom up. This sequence of events allowed the University to design an organization without being encumbered with any pre-existing bad habits. As design progressed for the site and buildings, the University realized that outside assistance would be necessary.

Ave Maria University entered into an agreement with ISES to allow us to utilize our expertise to define and develop the maintenance organization for the new campus. In completing this task, ISES took into account all facets of facilities management, including: 

• Preventive Maintenance
• Corrective Maintenance 
• Custodial Service 
• Grounds Maintenance 
• Utility Plant / Distribution Operations
• Engineering Support 
• Contract 
• Administration 
• Work Reception and Control
• General Facilities Management Administration
  

Based on the planned first-phase construction for the campus, with known building sizes, uses, and campus layout, we designed the maintenance organization for Ave Maria University. This design specified the numbers and types of positions needed by the University to adequately maintain and operate this new campus. We also priced out all of the operations, including labor, material support and anticipated contract expenses. This information allowed the University to proceed with campus construction with a secure knowledge of what level of support would be necessary the day the campus opened it’s doors for classes.