Office of Physical Plant

The Office of Physical Plant (OPP) is responsible for the stewardship of all the University's physical assets. This includes facilities at all the campus locations of the University as well as University Park. Physical plant has responsibility for facilities planning, design, construction, capital budget management, utility engineering, real estate, and environmental health and safety for the University, and maintenance and operations at University Park.

Presently, Penn State is undergoing a $769 million, five-year capital plan involving the construction and renovation of numerous academic, athletic, and auxiliary facilities on multiple campuses. This construction program is contracted and managed by Physical Plant with a hybrid of funds from the State and Federal government and the University. Penn State's total physical plant includes 1642 buildings comprising 24 million square feet of space, with a plant replacement value of $3.5 billion on almost 19,000 acres across the State of Pennsylvania.

OPP's workforce consists of over 1,100 professional, skilled, and administrative employees who provide the University with quality and cost-effective facilities services. Physical Plant personnel prepare long-range plans for efficient use of facilities, administer the University's real estate, see that new facilities are built properly and renovate older facilities. They also maintain roads, manage waste, landscape the campus, monitor building energy usage, clear the snow in the winter, and paint the end zones for home football games. OPP handles about 50,000 work assignments every year to keep facilities maintained. A wide variety of skilled work is carried out 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year.

Physical Plant is organized into seven major divisions:

Administrative and Financial Services

Design and Construction

Facilities Resources and Planning

Campus Planning and Design

Commonwealth Services

Operations

Environmental Health & Safety—The combined efforts of these Divisions to plan, build, and maintain the physical infrastructure of Penn State, allow the University to carry out it's mission of teaching, research, and public service.

The Pennsylvania State University

Office of Senior Vice President for Finance and Business/Treasurer
208 Old Main • University Park PA • 16802-1503 • 814-865-6574

For questions about Finance and Business,
please contact Kimberly Belcher at
814-865-6574 or kjb30@psu.edu.

For questions about the Web site, please contact:
Wendy Jones at 814-863-8277 or wxj6@psu.edu

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This page was last updated on Monday, July 02, 2007.