Universities

This report addresses ways in which the ASU Research Park and the UA Science and Technology Park can become financially viable and generate more relationships between park tenants and the universities. Although the research parks were planned to become financially self-sufficient, both have needed assistance from the universities. In particular, ASU has transferred $7.5 million to its park since fiscal year 1990 and UA has paid $2.5 million of its park’s start-up and operating costs. Even the most successful research parks nationally have struggled for many years before achieving financial self-sufficiency, in part because the pool of potential tenants is limited by entry restrictions. Although ASU’s park was unable to lease land during some past years, it has leased significant amounts of land to new tenants during recent years. The report recommends reevaluating the ASU park’s occupancy progress after three to five years. The report also recommends that management at both parks use other strategies to attract tenants, such as developing more effective relationships with university faculty as contacts for potential tenants...

The report addresses ways in which the universities can better manage the existing space on their main campuses. Currently, each university uses classrooms, on average, less than 60 percent of each day. Not only does this use fall below the Board of Regents’ current guidelines regarding utilization of classroom space, but these guidelines may themselves be set too low to ensure classrooms are adequately used. The report recommends that the Board of Regents continue their efforts to develop new classroom utilization standards and hold the universities accountable for increasing their use of classroom space. The report also recommends that as the universities take steps to increase classroom use, they should focus on some of the most expensive rooms, those equipped with instructional technology, which are also underutilized. One way to improve classroom use would be for the universities to schedule more classes through central scheduling offices and more fully automate their scheduling function. The universities can also adopt new practices, such as space audits, to help improve utilization.