Get with the Program

SITE MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES FROM THE PROS

by Barbara Dutton

After the ribbon cutting is no time for park district administrators to start thinking about how they will care for the glistening new pool or recreation building for which they've recently taken ownership. Foresight, along with comprehensive knowledge of a facility's make-up, can go a long way toward achieving success in establishing a solid facility maintenance program.

"Whether it's a public building or park you're constructing, from a maintenance standpoint it's important to get staff who will oversee upkeep of the facility involved in the project from the ground up," advises Ed Buonaccorsi, general services administrator with the City of Santa Rosa, CA, and a member of the Public Sector Council of the International Facility Management Association.

And although many matters compete for attention during the typical whirl of activity that shortly precedes a facility's debut, this period of time can be valuable in terms of providing an opportunity to learn about a building's maintenance requirements.

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For example, notes Tom Tristano, AIA, a principal with construction management company Williams Development, Carol Stream, a building project's "start-up" phase - when system connections with water and power sources are made — can be an occasion to learn about mechanical systems. "Typically, during start up the manufacturer of a piece of equipment and the subcontractor who installed it are there." These people can be great teachers for the staffers charged with keeping up the facility.

Glenview Park District Superintendent of Leisure Services Robert Quill emphasizes the importance of allowing time for custodial and maintenance staff to become acquainted with a new facility. Recalling the challenge presented when the vast Glenview Park Center opened the same week construction concluded, he remarks, "In a perfect world, staff would have at least a month in the facility to train and understand the needs of the operation."

Making Maintenance a Design Consideration Well before a park district even has a new facility to maintain, determination of materials that will constitute its parts influence the approach to, and level of, maintenance that the finished product will require. A multitude of materials to choose from, though, often means a multiplicity of budget considerations. "There are criteria for materials selection to achieve better product performance, but it's all based on dollars," relates Tom Tristano, principal with construction management firm Williams Development. "For example," he notes, "vinyl-coated or vinyl-faced ceiling tiles are a code requirement for concessions in some jurisdictions because of their resistance to absorbing fumes and their ability to be cleaned easily. They cost more money but it makes good sense." Though often increasing a facility's building costs, more durable materials can be an investment with a payoff down the road. Again citing ceiling tiles as an example, Tristano conveys that durability is a quality with a price tag that is worth considering for districts with financial means that permit some latitude in materials choices. "Ceiling tiles are $2 to $3 a foot in a ceiling system," explains Tristano. "If you spend that extra dollar, you typically will end up with a better product and might be able to get additional life out of it." Premiums and Practicallity Another materials choice that is often considered when designing a building's interior spaces is whether to use masonry options such as concrete block painted a with epoxy, split-faced block or glazed tile, or alternatively, less expensive drywall. The former, says Tristano, "are definitely premiums to a project, but they will give better performance in high-traffic and high-impact areas, such as in schools and recreation buildings." For these kinds of facilities, he says, "You want to try to stay away from drywall that's going to get nicked and scratched." Maintenance-conscious and budget-minded districts should not, however, dismiss drywall as an option altogether, for as Tristano points out, "You can paint it and give it a new look quickly and more easily than concrete block, split-faced block or other systems." Decorative wall treatment and flooring selections also will shape the maintenance requirements for a facility. To hide dirt and nicks, for example, spray-on "fleck" paint was specified for walls in the gymnasium, senior and preschool areas, and in heavily trafficked corridors of the Glenview Park Center. Other materials at the facility that were chosen for their endurance qualities are a graffiti-resistant coating on a bus stop shelter, as well as solid plastic toilet partitions. The latter, says Williams Architects Project Architect Tony Fenton, AIA, "are about as close to indestructible as you can get." "We spent a great deal of time making sure we were building an efficient facility when it came to maintenance," recounts Glenview Park District Superintendent of Leisure Services Robert Quill. Lessons learned in the process of building the center are being applied in new facility projects underway. "With development and new construction, we pay attention to the maintenance needs of the new facility and try to design efficiencies into the plan to reduce or simplify maintenance," explains Quill. "This can be as simple as making sure there is convenient storage for rooms that have multiple uses and require constant changes in set-up." A Voice Finally, those planning a new facility would do well to elicit input from those who will be responsible for taking care of it, suggests Ed Buonaccorsi, general services administrator with the City of Santa Rosa, CA, and a member of the Public Sector Council of the International Facility Management Association. "By making this function a part of the team," he says, "the voice of the maintenance person is there."

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Protecting an Asset

Buildings and other facilities represent significant investments for a park district and should be cared for accordingly. "Facility management is preventative maintenance of assets," comments Cindy Dieck, risk manager for Illinois Parks Association Risk Services. "A park district would want to ensure that those assets are maintained and operating efficiendy so they remain valuable."

Admonishes Tristano: "Ignoring maintenance has a significant impact on the health of a building." With this in mind, owners of new facilities should avoid any temptation to put off implemendng a routine maintenance program — however spotless the facility may look.

"New equipment and facilities begin to deteriorate as soon as they are put into service," observes Park Services Superintendent John Ohrlund, who oversees maintenance operations at Skokie Park District. "We want to keep that deterioration rate to a minimum through planned, preventive maintenance."

Proper facility upkeep can pay off down the road, suggests Quill. "We try to maintain what we have at the highest possible standard. The costs of doing so are almost always offset by the reduction in repairs and capital replacement of equipment before its time. As an example, we are finally building two new outdoor pools, replacing 42- and 65-year-old facilities. Both lasted well beyond the average lifespan of an outdoor pool in the northern Illinois area."

Ohrlund likens the park facilities' preventative maintenance effort to keeping up an automobile, which presents "a whole slew of things" that call for attention. "It's the same thing for every piece of equipment in park facilities," he says.

Building a Program

As Ohrlund suggests, the number of spaces and systems to contend with in a facility that has any degree of complexity can be staggering. "There are hundreds of systems and thousands of pieces in a building," notes Tristano, who can recite a litany of facility components any respectable maintenance program should cover.

Chief among these is the roof system, which he calls the first line of defense against the elements. "The other defense," he says, "is the building skin." This "envelope," as it is otherwise called, comprises windows, doors, caulk joints and the brick or siding of the building's exterior.

Tristano recommends developing a detailed schedule to manage the intricacies of a facility's operational components, taking into account such items as "belts on a motor, filters in air-handling units and strainers on pumps that regularly need to be pulled out, cleaned out, or thrown out and replaced."

An Automated Approach

To track an inventory of components in nine recreational facilities, the Skokie Park District relies on automation. The district uses Vermont Systems' MainTrac software to keep track of maintenance requirements and records for more than 300 pieces of equipment - from items including water pumps and HVAC equipment to special equipment such as a ball-wash dryer at the Skokie Sports Park.

"The system allows us to schedule maintenance and run weekly or

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monthly reports to list the equipment scheduled for maintenance," explains Skokie Park Division Administrative Assistant Dima Kirland, who works with the district's staff preventive maintenance specialist. "It also automatically alerts us when something is overdue.

"The system is useful in tracking historical costs for preventive maintenance and can be utilized to charge back the various facilities for these costs," adds Kirland, who explains that practicing preventive maintenance reduces the time that equipment, and in some cases, a facility, is down. "Costs are also cut," she notes, "as fewer repairs are required on an emergency basis, in which overtime or contactor costs are incurred.

When an item does break down or is otherwise in need of repair, supervisory staff at district facilities submit a work request electronically to the parks services division. It is then reviewed by the superintendent, who forwards approved requests to the operations supervisor, the parks supervisor, the preventive maintenance specialist or to Kirland, who, in turn, assigns the task of attending to the problem to appropriate staff.

Notes Kirland, "The work requests provide a means to ensure that this work is completed in a timely and efficient manner." Information about requests and work performed is tracked for historical records.

At Skokie, supervisory staff submit electronic work requests when an item needs repair. The superintendent of the parks services division reviews the request and then may issue an electronic work order to the proper manager.

Efficiency and Education

Achieving efficiencies while applying a systematic approach are goals that maintenance administrators would do well to keep in mind, suggests Robert Mayer, who oversees maintenance of landscape and associated "hardscape" facilities — which include garages, parking lots, fountains, patios and signage — at Sprint's 200-acre corporate headquarters in Overland Park, KS.

"We continue to evaluate, research, investigate and otherwise work towards production efficiencies, best practices and conservative fiscal management," explains Mayer, who expresses a philosophy of continuous improvement in maintenance administration.

While maintenance practices can be advanced through good administrative support, education is another pillar that supports the discipline, and an abundance of maintenance-pertinent information is available to those who seek it. Equipment and materials manufacturers, for example, may offer classes that provide instruction on maintenance procedures.

"Product suppliers, such as door hardware manufacturers, pool circulation pump manufacturers and those producing HVAC systems, are resources to develop a maintenance program," suggests Brett Davis, manager of risk management services with the Park District Risk Management Agency in Lisle.

Service contractors can be another source of information about systems, according to Davis, who cautions, however, that a grain of salt be taken along with their recommendations. "Often they are providing advice and selling services that may be in conflict."

When facility maintenance departments have their act together, it's obvious to Tristano. "When I walk into a mechanical room and see that the floor is impeccable, the lighting is well distributed, pipes are painted and labeled, insulation is neatly taped, and maintenance schedules posted," he says, "it tells me someone has taken the time to organize operational information and has pride in their facility."

A Case in Point

Exemplifying the kind of impressive facility Tristano describes is the River Trails Park District's Woodland Trails Pool in Mt. Prospect. While pool patrons very likely don't give much thought to aquatics facilities until summer approaches, during the icy days of February Woodland Trails maintenance specialist Bob Nicioli is gearing up for his pool's opening in May.

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extracting pertinent information for developing internal instruction guides.

"By the time you're done with a hundred-page manual, you might have eight pages you have notes on," he says. The time expended on this effort, in his estimation, is time well spent. "If it's not done, you're going to waste a lot of time in the future rereading these manuals."

River Trails Park District's Bob Nicioli builds a library of facts and figures pertaining to the care and functioning of the components he oversees by making notes on the manuals that come with new equipment.

Nicioli also recommends that maintenance staff avail themselves of continuing education opportunities, and that their supervisors support them in the effort. "Send them to classes," he says, citing a number of allied organizations, including the Illinois Parks and Recreation Association, National Recreation and Park Association and the Illinois Department of Public Health, that offer relevant courses.

Nicioli relates that he took the opportunity to acquaint himself with new equipment introduced to the River Trails pool facility during a recent renovation in which two spray pools and a zero-depth children's pool were added and the bathhouse was remodeled.

"From the ground up, we were able to enter the construction site and observe and ask questions," he says. "It gave us contact, not only with the facility and the construction process, but with the subcontractors who were out here. And that came into play much later, after we were up and running."

Once a maintenance department has taken receipt of a new piece of equipment, Nicioli recommends starting a record on it. "If you have a new chemical pump, somewhere you're going to want to record the serial number, the year it began service, and the maintenance schedule for the pump."

In following this course of action, he stresses, "Time is important because you could make mechanical mistakes if you don't know how to take care of the equipment." Finally, repairs performed and parts replaced on equipment should be thoroughly noted. "It's important so you're not spending money you don't need to."

Building on the Program

The meticulous maintenance program at Woodland Trails, indicates Parks Superintendent Tom Pope, is part of a larger focus on facility conditions that has flourished as a mandate of the district's board of commissioners — and one he envisions extending through further formalization. "We haven't yet implemented a written system documenting the upkeep and cosmetic appearance of buildings in the district. But, a facilities maintenance documentation program is going to be looked into this year."

In the meantime, as the winter chill receded and the days grew longer. River Trails' Nicioli was busy consulting schedules, checking records and charting strategies. "If you have something to refer to when asking, 'What work has been done on this machine?' you are more confident about its ability to run throughout the season."

And, for the record, Nicioli is not about to squander any opportunities to document, track and plan. For, as he reminds us, summer at Woodland Trails Pool always seems to be either here or else just around the corner. "Time goes by fast," he says. "Seasons open and seasons close."

Barbara Duton is the communications coordinator for Williams Architects and Williams Development in Carol Stream. Williams Architects and Williams Development serve a range of clients in diverse markets, including park and recreation, municipal and religious.

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