HOUSTON, TX The Huntsville Independent School District selects planning, engineering and program management firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc. (LAN) to provide a condition assessment of its facilities.

While the District has spent money on its buildings in the past, those expenditures have been for building expansions or for smaller repairs. Many of the District's aged buildings have not received the required funding to address the normal decline in building systems and finishes. The assessment will serve as a planning tool for the District's short-term and long-term facility goals.

LAN will assess approximately 1,200,000 square feet of facilities across the District's campuses. The assessment will include on-site physical inspections of 11 facilities, including schools, and administrative offices. Additionally, a computer-based assessment will be used that will allow the district to develop long-range planning for future capital needs. The program is linked to real-time cost information and will aid the district in developing "what-if" scenarios for the needs identified by the assessment team.

"The project will allow the District to identify, prioritize and demonstrate the need for attention to its buildings," said JP Grom, AIA, LAN's Vice President. "As the community grows and the standards are raised, it will be important to have a long-range facilities plan in place and this assessment is a cornerstone of that plan."

The assessment will be completed in October 2016.