16.3: Institutional Arrangements for Bases, Campuses, Parks and Ports
The institutional managers of bases, campuses, parks, and ports vary considerably among different entities and nations. Some typical arrangements are:
- Military bases are usually controlled by particular branches of the military service, such as Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines or Navy.
- Campuses may be controlled by government agencies (as with the Department of Energy Laboratories), corporations, or non-profit entities (such as Dartmouth College shown in Figure 16.1.2).
- Parks may be controlled by national, state or local government agencies. Privately owned parks also exist, such as the Disney Corporation resorts.
- Ports may be controlled by corporations, government agencies or other non-profit entities.
The concepts associated with infrastructure management outlined in the first ten chapters of this book, and illustrated in Figure 16.3.1 below, apply both to independently controlled and integrated entities. Campus infrastructure managers regularly perform asset management, inventory, benchmarking, etc.
However, some regulatory differences exist for integrated entities. For example, campuses, parks and ports typically have master planning processes in place for long-term infrastructure changes. These plans may include elements such as locations and rough shapes for future buildings and designations of permanent open space. New infrastructure is explicitly tied to the entities overall mission (e.g., education and research for universities), and all new buildings or other investments would then be designed to conform to the master plan. Cities and states have similar master planning processes, but these typically recognize the dispersed decision making associated with dispersed ownership of infrastructure.
Transitions in institutional arrangements for these integrated entities can also occur, although usually over a lengthy period of time. For example, Figure 16.1.1 showed Fort Jefferson which was transferred from military control to the National Park Service. Private community and resort developers may control the entire property initially, but then control is transferred to individual property buyers and eventually a community governing organization.