OPTIMIZING THE PLANNING OF BUILDING RENOVATION PROJECTS

Abstract

A large number of the buildings in the United States are aging and in urgent need of renovation to improve their operational, economic, social, and environmental performance. To address this, building renovation projects in the United States have been increasing in recent years. A significant volume of this building renovation work focuses on leased buildings and hotel properties as they represent a substantial percentage of all existing buildings. This type of building renovation projects presents planners with significant challenges because they need to consider and minimize the disruptive impact of renovation activities on building operations and revenues during the planned work. The main goal of this study is to present the development of novel models for optimizing the planning of building renovation projects that are capable of analyzing and minimizing the disruptive impact of renovation activities on the revenues of leased buildings and hotels. To achieve this goal, the research objectives of this study are to develop: (1) a novel model for optimizing the planning of leased building renovation projects that enables building owners to minimize total renovation cost including rental income losses; (2) an innovative model for optimizing the planning of renovation work in leased buildings that enables contractors working under Integrated Project Delivery method to maximize their reward sharing while minimizing total renovation cost; and (3) a novel model for optimizing the planning of hotel renovation projects that enables hotel owners to maximize their revenues during renovation work while minimizing project cost. The performance of the developed models was analyzed using real-life case studies. The results of this analysis illustrated the novel and unique capabilities of the developed models to (i) generate feasible renovation plans that fully comply with all practical constraints including the availability dates of leased units and hotel floors, (ii) quantify and minimize revenue losses of leased buildings and hotels during renovation work, (iii) reduce total renovation cost, and (iv) maximize net profits of both owners and contractors.