24 



I already mentioned several examples of that in my statement. 



The life-cycle cost to maintain the older buildings is extremely high. We 

 know that when we have to go in and address a problem in the Clinical Cen- 

 ter, it costs us $128 to do an alteration or renovation, $128 per square foot. 

 And we know that at many other facilities, like at the Salk Institute, for exam- 

 ple, they can accomplish the same thing for $50 a square foot. 



The issue of designing buildings to meet future needs — that is, designing in 

 the flexibility and adaptability to meet changing research requirements and 

 technological advances — is critical. It reduces the maintenance costs. It re- 

 duces the operating costs. It allows the alterations and renovations to meet 

 those needs to be done more economically. And it continues the state-of-the- 

 art for a much longer period of time so that we can address the problems we 

 talked about in terms of retaining and recruiting top scientists, as well as 

 meeting the public health priorities. 



Senator Sarbanes. Of course, in terms of the amount of money we are 

 talking about, as a percentage of the overall money that is invested in your 

 facilities, it is a very small percent. Is that not the case? 



Mr. Ficca. I can address that. 



Senator Sarbanes. I mean, there is an awful lot of money that has been 

 invested, like in the NIH campus. The amount we are talking about in order 

 to take that campus from where it is to a higher and much more acceptable 

 level, as a percent of the total amount of money that's been put in, is not a 

 very large percentage figure, is it? 



Mr. Ficca. No. There are several ways of looking at that, in terms of how 

 to address infrastructure. 



There's an amount of funds that we have to expend to renovate or repair 

 the institution to bring it up to its original intended use. Then there's the pre- 

 ventive maintenance program, which would keep a facility at that level of its 

 intended use. Then there's the third expenditure, which has to do with those 

 renovations and construction that are required to meet technological advances 

 and to accommodate new advances in biomedical research. 



So when you look at that, and we think if we just start with what it takes to 

 maintain at the current use, I think that the percentages that the National 

 Academy of Sciences has identified, the 2 to 4 percent of the replacement 

 value of the facilities, would adequately cover that. 



At the NIH, because of the large proportion of our facilities that are labora- 

 tory and clinically related, that percentage is probably closer to 3 or 3.1 per- 

 cent than it is to 2 percent. 



And then, I'd say that to meet the future demands; in other words, to reach 

 a new plateau, probably if we look at the total amount that's been invested for 

 the NIH in terms of its operating costs and in terms of carrying out its re- 

 search programs, we're probably talking about 1 to 2 percent of that invest- 

 ment. 



Senator Sarbanes. General McGarvey? 



Gen. McGarvey. Yes. I would echo the same concerns, that it is extremely 

 difficult to predict what the future requirements may be, based on the tech- 

 nology breakthroughs. 



But in that arena, we have gone to both extremes. We have wind tunnels; 

 for example, a full-scale wind tunnel at Langely Research Center which is the 



