Maine’s universities have millions of square feet of building space that is lightly used, expensive to maintain and, by and large, overdue for significant renovation. The reality is that the physical structure of the state’s public universities was built for a different age in higher education.
The University of Maine System’s board of trustees took a small but needed step to address that reality at its recent meeting in Fort Kent when it approved a proposal to sell the Stone House, a 10,000-square-foot former summer residence in Freeport used primarily by the University of Southern Maine’s master’s-level creative writing program for biannual retreats.
The seven-campus system needs to take more, similar actions to address the fact that its physical footprint, by most measures, is too large for the number of students it enrolls. Selling the Stone House is a start.
Designed as a summer residence nearly a century ago by Maine architect John Calvin Stevens, the Stone House is located on the grounds of the nonprofit Wolfe’s Neck Farm, and it overlooks both the Harraseeket River and Casco Bay.
The University of Southern Maine has owned the building — valued by the town of Freeport at $1.15 million — since 1984, and the Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation has final say over the Stone House’s sale.
While the building has historical significance, there’s little economic sense in keeping it under University of Southern Maine ownership. During the summer season — June 15 to Oct. 15 — it’s used about 40 days altogether, according to the university system, and for another brief stint in January.
In the coming years, the university system estimates it would need to spend $8.5 million to make the house suitable for year-round use and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. That’s on top of the building’s $75,000 to $110,000 in annual operating costs.
Judging by the metrics of under utilization and significant renovation need, the Stone House isn’t alone in the University of Maine System. In 2013, the firm Sightlines analyzed university system facilities and flagged 73 buildings — about 300,000 square feet of space — that were old, in poor shape and infrequently used. Divesting of space that isn’t truly needed has the primary benefit of allowing the university system to avoid the significant cost of building improvements in the coming years. The system also would stand to save from reduced day-to-day operation and maintenance costs.
Overall, the University of Maine System’s facilities costs are expensive for a university system serving about 30,000 students. According to Sightlines’ analysis, Maine universities in 2013 spent $6.70 on operations for every square foot of space compared with $6.13 at Maine’s peer state university systems.
Compared with other state university systems reviewed by Sightlines, the University of Maine System’s facilities also are infrequently used. In 2013, the University of Maine System saw fewer than 300 users — students, staff and faculty — for every 100,000 square feet of space, compared with an average of 400 users at other state university systems. That rate of facilities use has declined 11 percent since 2006, according to Sightlines.
As more instruction moves online, there’s a growing realization across the country that college and university campuses have grown too large and that the spaces they have are largely ill-suited to the type of in-person instruction likely to dominate post-secondary education in the coming decades.
If online exercises largely replace traditional lectures, the on-campus learning that remains will likely be interactive, hands-on and technology-intensive. Classroom spaces will have to accommodate that style of learning.
The University of Southern Maine’s sale of the Stone House is a small step toward a smaller footprint — but hopefully the harbinger of more significant physical changes to come.