Grounds and landscaping usually represent a much smaller proportion of your operating expenses than utilities, building maintenance or custodial. However, they represent a significant “first impression” to your property and if maintained poorly can create a negative impression of other essential maintenance services.
Facility Managers can have significant impacts on their operating costs by understanding how they are performing relative to others and what opportunities exist to reduce or control grounds and landscaping maintenance costs. The information you need to benchmark is the:
- Cost of your grounds and landscaping maintenance activities
- Area maintained in acres
Step 1—Grounds/Landscaping Benchmarking Definitions
Maintenance Costs:
Landscaping Costs—includes routine maintenance of grounds and landscaping with fertilization and trimming as applicable.
Costs for new landscaping, new lighting, new irrigation systems, conversion from grass to desert, should be included in the “Project Costs” section. Cost should not include cost of water; water costs should be included in utilities.
| Function | Internal Costs ($000) | Contractual Costs ($000) |
| Administrative costs for grounds keeping | ||
| Direct costs for grounds keeping | ||
| Irrigation system maintenance cost | ||
| Replacement costs for plants, trees, shrubs, etc. | ||
| F1. Total annual grounds keeping costs. |
Use the table below as a worksheet to calculate your landscaped areas. Do not include “Wild” in the total you report.
| Description | Acres |
| “Wild”, needing no effort to maintain (do not include in total below) | |
| “Controlled needing only weeding and contour maintenance | |
| “Sparse”, controlled with a few plants being maintained | |
| “Xeriscape”, desert landscaping with low water use plants | |
| “Lawn”, mostly maintained grass with a few plants | |
| “Garden”, mostly maintained shrubs, flowers, trees, etc. | |
| F2. Total landscaped area (acres). |
Step 2—How Do I Compare With Others
Once this information is collected it is easy to normalize the data on a unit cost basis to determine how efficiently your grounds and landscaping maintenance services are provided. For all of our benchmarking studies we use maintenance cost per acre of grounds and landscaping to compare costs with others.
- Each bar on the chart represents a site’s annual maintenance cost per acre of landscaping
- The median cost for paving maintenance is $3405 per acre
- Note how consistent the normalized data is for these participants. About 60 percent have reported a cost of between $1000 and $4000 per acre. However, there are some sites with very high or very low costs. Sometimes a headquarters or high visibility facility will experience costs that are significantly greater than the norm for image or cultural reasons. At other sites the landscaping will be an insignificant issue and the costs will be relatively low.
Step 3—Using This Information
You’ve completed your grounds and landscaping g maintenance data collection and performed the calculations. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself
- Where do you stand on these charts? Are you above the median or below it?
- Could you explain to management why your positions on the charts is just right or needs to be changed?
- What are some of the reasons that explain your positions on the charts?
Step 4— Some Best Practices
- Develop a preventive maintenance plan for managing your grounds and landscaping activities. This photo shows the grounds and landscaping at a very high end corporate headquarters facility. The landscaping is walked and inspected on a weekly basis with the contractor.
- Communicate the programs you are implementing with your occupants in a regular and routine way. Grounds and landscaping work will be very visible and your occupants need to understand why these programs are being implemented.
Metrics from the Facility Managers Round Table (FMRT)
In 2005 there were 92 unique sites in the FMRT with a median size of about 1,450,000 square feet. See the chart below to see how the group looked by industry type.
Space Metrics
- Space Utilization 430 Gross Square Feet per Occupant
- Cost Metrics
- Utilities $2.17 / GSF
- Custodial $1.33 / Cleanable SF
- Maintenance $1.69 / GSF
- Parking and Paving $1529 / Acre
- Groundskeeping $3405 / Acre
- Security $0.73 / GSF
- Mail Services $0.22 / GSF
- Environmental Health and Safety $0.35 / GSF
- Fixed Costs (Includes: Building, Leasehold Improvements, Furniture/Equipment) $ 3.71 / GSF
Move / Churn Cost Metrics
- Box Move Costs $317 / Person Moved
Customer Satisfaction
- Satisfaction With Overall Facilities Services 3.80 on a 1 to 5 scale