The five-year Strategic Facilities Plan (SFP) for Fiscal Years 2010-2015 was approved in spring 2008. The SFP is adjusted annually following a series of Building and Space Plan Meetings to revise facility priorities in accordance with changing NIH needs and in anticipation of future facility budgets. The Buildings and Facilities (B&F) plan includes requests to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to fund new construction and renovation projects; facility activities related to the remediation of unsafe conditions, upgrading of obsolescent systems; and the elimination of code or regulatory compliance deficiencies; and Repair and Improvement projects. The Lease Space Plan identifies lease space actions NIH intends to support over the coming five-year period.  These include new, replacement, and consolidated Prospectus level leases as well as leases scheduled to expire and ongoing leases that are planned to remain in the inventory. 

The SFP approved by the Facilities Working Group in 2008 was based on four assumptions:

·         The NIH B&F budget was not expected to increase significantly over FY2009 levels;

·         B&F funds will barely cover Repair and Improvement (R&I) requests, making new construction or total renovations on government lands unlikely;

·         NIH staffing was not expected to grow;

·         Because of shortages in B&F funds, any required new NIH space will probably need to be leased, but new space will not be leased without a specific and funded requirement.

With the exception of Anatomical Pathology, Phase A, no line item B&F projects were proposed for funding during the five-year SFP period.

The NIH Lease Plan is increasingly used to address requirements that cannot be met on government property. Priorities of this Plan are to:

1. Replace expiring leases with government owned space, in particular where research space is concerned;
2. Consolidate small leases into larger Prospectus level actions led by GSA;
3. Maintain current lease clusters when possible; and
4. Continue to promote efficient space utilization through space assignment rates, and increased use of telework/hoteling.