Facilities Services is the department at Oswego State responsible for the upkeep and renovation of all college-owned buildings and is currently in the middle of a plan to renovate and update campus.

Operating with a budget of $2 million per year for materials and an additional $12 million for staff wages, the department had been keeping an eye on campus buildings and sorted them into categories based on their general state of repair. These categories are poor, fair, good and excellent.

Financing repairs comes directly from the $2 million for materials the department is allotted yearly, with half of that coming from capital appropriation. Capital appropriation is responsible for new construction, large-scale repairs and the preventative maintenance of working, but older equipment whose age makes it subject to unplanned outages.

Buildings on campus generally have similar costs, with the average building costing $1.25 per square foot in maintenance per year and $3 in energy consumption each year, said Mitch Fields, the associate vice president for Facilities Services.

However, some buildings have unique needs within that cost, with some needing more for a lot less. Mackin Complex, the oldest unrenovated building on campus, has not seen a large renovation since the early 1990s, when the roof was redone. Fields said Mackin has the highest number of unplanned outages and repairs on campus, due to its age.

“Mackin [Complex] is by far in the poorest condition,” Fields said. “Mackin does not have anywhere near the utilization that other buildings have.”

The most expensive building to maintain on campus is Shineman Science Center, which is the most recent construction on campus.

Completed in 2013, Shineman Center replaced Snygg Hall for the sciences and incorporated Piez Hall entirely, connecting Park, Wilbur and its newly constructed classrooms and science labs into one large building on the east side of campus.

Shineman Center has LEED Gold certification, meaning it is highly energy efficient and environmentally friendly. It has a geothermal energy system, solar panels and a wind turbine, which allows for the building to rely on no fossil fuels for climate control, Fields said.

That high level of energy-saving technology, alongside state requirements that buildings with chemical labs have their air recirculated, makes Shineman the largest investment in facilities that Oswego State makes and calls for more from Facilities Services.

“The new building has far higher demands for maintenance than the older, less technologically savvy, static buildings,” Fields said.

However, these higher costs regarding maintenance in Shineman Center are not without their reasons. Due to the environment surrounding the college, including Lake Ontario, where 20 percent of the world’s fresh water flows through yearly, sometimes the issue of money takes a lower priority than environmental friendliness,” Fields said.

“We see ourselves as a steward of [the environment], and sometimes, cost is overridden by those concerns, Fields said.

Considering the age of the campus, with many buildings being constructed in the 1960s when the college undertook a huge expansion project that included the construction of every building west of Park Hall, some buildings are not ADA compliant.

“There are two buildings on campus right now that I think need to be addressed,” Fields said. “One of them is Mackin [Complex], and the other is Lee [Hall].”

These buildings are not handicap-accessible, with a main issue being access to their upper floors. Fields said both buildings have “quasi-levels,” or floors that are not a standard or regular distance above or below the other levels in the building, making installing an elevator difficult.

“You would have to sometimes have an elevator that has three doors, and you would go up a half a level and so forth,” Fields said.

Despite these complications, Fields said that Facilities Services does have a plan to bring both Mackin Complex and Lee Hall up to ADA compliance.

Mary DePentu, the director of Facilities Services, Maintenance and Operations, said the department employs about 250 people for the purposes of maintenance and upkeep, but that number fluctuates nearly daily.

“At any time, we can have 20 people out for illness, on compensation or retirement,” DePentu said.

Each building has its own unique needs and is therefore staffed by different numbers of people depending on size.

DePentu said there are three people responsible for Waterbury Hall and a total of nine in Seneca Hall.

Residential halls have their maintenance and janitorial staff work on different schedules than academic halls due to the types of use they see. While there are nine people responsible for Seneca Hall in total, Mahar Hall, an academic hall, has six people specifically for the day shift, with different numbers for the afternoon and night shifts.

Academic halls have 24-hour coverage, though they may not have a janitor or cleaner in them for all 24 hours. Cleaners can rotate between buildings that have 24-hour access, like Penfield Library or Marano Campus Center, and those that close at a specific time, like Mahar.

Academic buildings are assigned a building supervisor who is, on average, responsible for four halls in total, but may sub in for other buildings if their supervisor is not available.

Photo: Alexander Gault-Plate | The Oswegonian