Planning begins for next stages of capital development

Now that Gov. Chris Gregoire has signed the state's 2011-2013 capital budget, it's time to gear up the 2013-2015 capital request and 2013-2023 10-year capital planning processes at Western Washington University.

After several months of discussion with Western's University Planning and Resources Council and stakeholders about the 2011-2013 process, several important improvements have been made to the 2013-2015 process. Most noticeably:

• The timeline has started sooner (now as opposed to this fall)
• The timeline has been divided into two phases (phase 1 focuses on projects $2,000,000 and greater while phase 2 focuses on minor works of $25,000 to $2,000,000).
• The request form now includes the evaluation criteria and requires the applicant to respond to criteria that is relevant to their request.

The process timeline and capital project request form are online.

During the next several weeks, the WWU vice presidents and planning unit leaders will be re-evaluating their strategic plans, reviewing previous large project requests and determining what projects they would like to bring forward for consideration in the development of the 2013-2015 capital request plan and 2013-2023 10-year capital plan. Those requests should be submitted to Facilities Development’s capital planning and development office by July 22. Once those are submitted, officials will begin the process of refinement and prioritization for discussion in the fall. The development of minor works projects will begin in the fall.

For more information about the process, go online, email Rick Benner, director of Facilities Development, at rick.benner@wwu.edu or call (360) 650-3550.

More information about the outcome of the 2011-2013 capital budget also is available online.