At a Glance

Sector:  Higher Education / Science / Infrastructure

Location:  Lawrence, KS

Delivery:  Public-Private Partnership

Scale:  55 Acres | 975,000 SF | 7 Buildings | $383 Million 

Result: Delivered Early and Under Budget | P3 Bulletin Best Social Infrastructure Project Finalist (2016)

The Situation

The University of Kansas needed to transform 55 acres of its campus and deliver seven new buildings to strengthen student and faculty recruitment, expand its research capabilities, and compete more effectively with peer institutions. Through the normal process of requesting funding from the state or the Kansas Board of Regents, a project of this scope would have taken close to 20 years. The university didn't have that kind of time.

They needed a partner who could help them find a different path forward, one that could move at the pace the university required while navigating the political and financial complexities that come with being a public institution.

How We Got Involved

The first conversation between Edgemoor and the University of Kansas happened by chance, at a conference in Denver in early 2015. Over the months that followed, that initial introduction became something much more substantial. We spent time on campus, met with leadership across academic, financial, and operational areas, and worked to understand the full scope of what the university was trying to accomplish, not just the buildings they wanted to deliver, but the future they were trying to build.

In parallel, we assembled the team we believed could best meet the needs of the project, bringing together architects, financial partners, construction leaders, and operational specialists, each chosen specifically for this project. And we developed an approach built around the university's particular constraints: an aggressive timeline, a complex public funding environment, and a need for the project to perform financially and operationally for decades to come.

We won the project in the summer of 2015, and the clock started immediately.

Six Months to Get It Right

The university had an aggressive timeline from the start. They wanted the full scope of the project designed, priced, and under contract within six months, a pace that would have been ambitious for a single building, let alone seven.

In that window, we designed all seven buildings to a level of detail sufficient to guarantee a price and a schedule. We structured the financing around tax-exempt bonds, working collaboratively with the university to navigate a unique set of requirements under Kansas law around building ownership, credit implications, and debt structure. The university had roughly $350 million in existing debt and a strong credit rating, and they were genuinely concerned that taking on another significant bond issuance could impact their standing with the rating agencies.

It didn't. Through a collaborative pitch to the rating agencies and investors, the university's existing debt rating was unaffected, and the new bonds came in just one step below, an outcome the university was thrilled with. We signed the contract on a Friday, six months after we started, right on target.

Managing the Complexity

The scope of this project was unlike anything we had taken on before. Seven buildings, two separate general contractors working simultaneously on the same 55-acre site, two different architectural teams, and a wide range of stakeholder groups, from academic departments to housing and dining to student life, all with different needs and different expectations.

We organized stakeholder engagement around a carefully sequenced schedule, meeting with different groups throughout the day to make sure every voice was heard and every program requirement was addressed without allowing any single group's process to slow the overall effort.

The project also operated without a traditional contingency budget, which meant that every change required finding an offsetting savings somewhere else in the project. That dynamic kept our team in constant communication with the university's leadership and demanded a level of creative problem-solving and mutual trust that ultimately made the partnership stronger.

Going Beyond What Was Required

Throughout the project, there were moments where we chose to invest our own resources for the good of the project. One example that stands out: the central utility plant. Most utility plants have standard white or gray painted pipes for hot and cold water. The university had expressed interest in using the plant as a teaching lab for engineering students, and we saw an opportunity to make that vision tangible. We knew the impact it would have on the students and faculty who would use that space every day, so we made the decision to fund it ourselves. We installed red insulation on all hot water pipes and blue insulation on all cold water lines, so that students walking through the facility could visually follow each system from start to finish.

In the grand scheme of a $350+ million project, it was a modest investment. But when you see an opportunity to make the project better for the people who will use it every day, and you have the ability to do it, you do it.

A Living Campus

A decade later, the seven buildings stand at the center of KU's modern campus identity and a defining piece of the university's research and academic strategy.

The Integrated Science Building, the largest of the seven, now bears the name of Chancellor Gray-Little, who championed the project from its earliest days. Today the building houses KU's Department of Chemistry alongside programs in medicinal chemistry, physics, and molecular biosciences, with 21 teaching labs, 41 research labs, a 10,000 square foot clean room for biomaterials and electronics research, and the Ralph N. Adams Institute for Bioanalytical Chemistry. Hundreds of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral researchers now do their work there every day, in a building designed specifically to enable the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration that defines KU's modern research mission.

The other buildings have come into their own in much the same way. The new Kansas Union has become one of the largest single open space in Lawrence and a center of student life on campus. The South Dining Commons and Cora Downs Residence Hall anchor an expanded residential community that keeps students closer to where they learn. The central utility plant continues to do the work it was designed to do, with the colored pipes Edgemoor funded giving engineering students a visual way to trace the systems through the building.

Taken together, the Central District represents the centerpiece of more than $700 million in capital improvements made during Chancellor Gray-Little's tenure, and it has helped KU compete for the faculty, students, and research funding the project was designed to attract. Ten years later, the Central District is not what KU built, it is part of who KU has become.

The Ripple Effect

We continue to operate and maintain the Central District today, ensuring the quality and performance of the facilities as a long-term partner to the university. But what has happened since the project opened may say more about it than the buildings themselves.

The relationships we built at KU led to multiple additional projects. The university chose us for a second major campus development, telling us directly that the trust and track record from the Central District was why they chose us again. One of our primary KU contacts left for another university and personally called us to come help with a project on his new campus. And our work at KU is what introduced us to the Kansas City airport opportunity that ultimately became the largest project in our history.

And just recently, a prospective client toured the Central District with one of the university's team members who has been there since the beginning. The next day, they awarded us the project, in part based on walking through the buildings we delivered and still maintain, and hearing unprompted praise from the people who use them every day.

What led to all of this comes down to something pretty simple: keep your promises, do what you say you'll do, and treat people the way you'd want to be treated. The relationships that come from that are the most important thing we have, and they mean more to us than any single project ever could.

The Bigger Picture

This project started with a chance conversation. A decade later, it has produced four projects, a long-term operating partnership, and relationships that we cherish. The general counsel at KU still runs over and gives our team a hug every time we are on campus. That is not something you put in a proposal, but it says more about the quality of the partnership than any metric ever could.

We are proud of what was built at KU, proud of the seven buildings and the 55 acres and the work they support every day. But what we are most proud of is what this project has become over time. It started as a construction project and became a lasting partnership, one that has grown stronger with every year and every new challenge we have taken on together. KU trusted us once, and that trust has only deepened since. We do not take that for granted, and we never will.