Michigan school districts are entering a new era of school infrastructure. The challenge is no longer just deferred maintenance or aging systems; it is whether legacy facilities can be upgraded into intelligent, resilient platforms for learning, operations, and community service. In that context, power, connectivity, and controls are no longer background infrastructure—they are central to the future viability of the school building itself.

The Buildings We Inherited

In boardrooms, bond planning sessions, and facilities walkthroughs, the same conclusion keeps emerging.

The buildings we inherited were built for a different era, but the expectations placed on them have changed dramatically. Schools are now expected to function as connected learning environments, energy-managed facilities, public safety infrastructure, and community hubs. That mismatch is no longer a future concern; it is a present planning challenge.

They were built before the internet.
Before connected devices.
Before the idea that a building could generate, process, and respond to data in real time.

And yet, here we are, asking those same buildings to carry the weight of a fully digital society.

That is not simply a facilities challenge. It is an infrastructure transition story, and the cost of delay is becoming visible in capital planning, energy use, and instructional capacity. The question is no longer whether schools will need to change. It is whether districts will treat that change as a strategic investment rather than an overdue repair project.

The broader point is simple: as buildings are asked to do more, the systems that power and connect them matter just as much as the walls, roofs, and mechanical systems themselves.

At a glance:

  • Aging buildings are carrying modern expectations.
  • Capital pressure is rising as refinancing and electrification accelerate.
  • Digital infrastructure is now part of school readiness, not an add-on.
  • Retrofit, not replacement, is the practical path for most districts.

A Financial Signal

A useful reference point is a conversation featuring Denise Lee and Stephen Kelly of the Cisco/NTT DATA partnership, hosted by David Bombal on his video, “Will this replace PoE (Power over Ethernet)?” In that discussion, they outline emerging approaches to power delivery that may challenge traditional Ethernet-based systems in high-demand environments. For school buildings, the relevance is less about adopting this exact technology and more about recognizing that the power and connectivity layers of buildings are changing rapidly.

That point becomes more concrete when viewed through the scale of the current refinancing cycle: many buildings were built 30 to 40 years ago, before internet-era requirements, and roughly $3 trillion in building refinancing is coming up globally in the next two years. Electrification is adding further pressure, as schools and campuses adopt more electric heating, cooling, and other systems that place new demands on their power infrastructure. That scale is forcing owners and operators to make hard decisions quickly.

This is often described as a “maturity wall.”

But the more important signal is not only financial. It is structural, operational, and strategic.

What this refinancing cycle really represents is a moment of decision:

  • Which buildings still work?
  • Which buildings need to change?
  • And which ones can no longer support the systems we depend on?

For school districts, that means the question is not only whether a building can be repaired. It is whether it can remain a viable platform for learning, operations, and public service over the next generation.

Because refinancing is no longer just about extending debt.
It is about testing whether an asset can still perform in a connected economy.

The Hidden Parallel in Michigan Schools

In Michigan, this same dynamic is playing out—just under a different name.

A few years ago, the state undertook 11Y studies, a layer of school infrastructure planning that focused heavily on physical condition and capital needs. One important gap in that work was the operational technology layer: information technology, communications technology, and energy technology infrastructure. That omission matters because this layer can turn modernized school infrastructure into a value generator—delivering lower capital and operating costs, a better learning environment, and stronger community value over time. In short, this is the layer that may pay for itself over a 10-year period.

We do not call it refinancing.
We call it:

  • bond cycles
  • sinking funds
  • capital improvement plans
  • facility consolidation

But functionally, it is the same moment: a decision window where capital planning and system capability collide.

School districts across the state are being asked to make long-term investment decisions about buildings that were never designed for a digital learning environment.

Most of these schools were:

  • built or modernized between the 1960s and 1990s
  • designed around analog systems
  • engineered without the need for high-capacity data networks

Today, they are expected to support:

  • 1:1 student devices
  • AI-enabled curriculum
  • building automation systems
  • safety and security technologies
  • community access beyond school hours

This is not a minor evolution.

It is a complete shift in what a school building is expected to do.

Refinancing Analog Buildings Into a Digital Economy

The core tension is simple:

We are reinvesting in buildings that were never designed for connectivity.

Across the private sector, this creates financial pressure. Across the public sector, it creates planning risk with direct consequences for students, educators, and communities. The challenge is especially acute in education because districts rarely have the option to replace entire facilities on a short timeline.

Because when a building cannot support digital systems, it becomes:

  • more expensive to operate
  • harder to adapt
  • less effective as a learning environment

And over time, less viable.

The refinancing wave in commercial real estate is showing us what happens when this performance gap becomes too large.

Buildings do not fail overnight.
They fall behind—until they cannot catch up.

The Retrofit Imperative

Across sectors, the reality is unavoidable:

  • The majority of buildings that will exist in 2050 already exist today
  • Retrofitting is no longer optional—it is the primary path forward

In older buildings, the challenge is not just one system.
It is the entire stack:

  • electrical capacity
  • cabling pathways
  • control systems
  • integration between mechanical, lighting, and IT systems

Many legacy facilities still rely on analog controls and isolated systems that do not integrate with modern digital infrastructure.

This is why retrofit costs often lie less in visible improvements than in the hidden infrastructure required to make systems interoperable. The opportunity, however, is that emerging systems such as fault-managed power distribution use cabling practices compatible with standard retrofit protocols, meaning districts do not need to tear out an entire building to begin. New power and control systems can layer onto existing pathways, making the upgrade sequence both realistic and phased rather than disruptive.

A practical example helps illustrate the point. Imagine a mid-century school building with aging electrical infrastructure, limited conduit space, and a patchwork of disconnected controls. Rather than replacing the entire facility, a district could upgrade the power backbone, install modern controls, and add networked systems in phases while the building remains in operation. That approach turns a major capital project into a manageable modernization strategy.

A Different Way to Think About School Modernization

If we continue to approach school investments as isolated upgrades—roofs, boilers, lighting—we will continue to chase problems.

But if we recognize this moment for what it is, we can do something different.

We can treat schools as infrastructure platforms that produce educational, operational, and community outcomes.

Not just buildings.

Schools are not simply places where systems happen to be housed. They are systems themselves: learning systems, energy systems, workforce systems, and community systems. In this model, digital infrastructure is not an add-on.

It is the foundation.

From Buildings to Systems

This is where the conversation shifts from maintenance to performance.

School modernization is no longer just about physical condition.
It is about system capability.

Can the building:

  • support integrated data systems?
  • optimize energy use dynamically? (Modern systems can reduce facility energy costs by 75%.)
  • adapt to new learning technologies?
  • serve as a hub for community connectivity?

If the answer is no, then the question is no longer whether to invest.

It is how to invest correctly.

The Hidden Cost: AC-to-DC Conversion Losses

Legacy buildings are losing energy in ways most facility managers do not track.

Consider how power moves through a traditional school or campus building:

  • Transmission lines deliver power to the site (5–20% line loss before it even arrives)
  • An electrical panel converts AC to DC for equipment
  • That conversion loses 2–3 percentage points
  • Inside the building, there are typically 3 to 6 additional AC-to-DC conversion stages
  • Each hop loses more power

In older data centers and large facilities, the impact is staggering: roughly 65% of total energy consumption goes to non-useful power—cooling losses, line distribution losses, and conversion inefficiencies—rather than actual work. That is why the issue is not simply one of efficiency, but of design discipline.

This is not a compliance issue. It is a cost issue.

A 5 megawatt data center that converts from air cooling and traditional power distribution to direct liquid cooling and managed power delivery can reduce energy costs by 75%. That same infrastructure can also support 2.3 times the computational load for the same energy input.

For schools, the principle is identical. As buildings become platforms for learning systems, data systems, and building automation, the energy efficiency of the underlying power and cooling infrastructure directly affects operational budgets, available capacity, and long-term viability. Intelligent infrastructure means paying attention to losses that traditional facility planning ignores.

A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity

The refinancing wave in commercial real estate is often described as a risk.

In many ways, it is.

But it is also an inflection point.

The same is true for Michigan schools.

Bond cycles, consolidation efforts, and facility planning processes are converging at the same moment the definition of infrastructure is changing.

This creates a rare alignment:

  • financial decision points
  • aging assets
  • new technological expectations

If we align these elements, we can move beyond maintaining buildings.

We can transform them.

The Compass Direction: Not Yet, But Next

In many communities, the capacity to fully modernize is not yet there.

That is okay.

The goal is not immediate perfection.
It is intentional direction and sequencing.

Start with:

  • integrated infrastructure planning
  • scalable network architecture
  • alignment between facilities and technology teams
  • workforce pathways tied to real building systems (Network engineers, IT staff, and technicians—not just electricians—can now install and manage intelligent power and control systems, opening new career entry points and addressing skilled labor shortages.)

This is where the opportunity expands.

Modernized schools can do more than house instruction. They can also serve as training environments for the very skills the future workforce will require. As buildings become more digitally integrated, they create natural opportunities for career and technical education, hands-on learning in networked systems, energy management, controls, and building operations. In that sense, school modernization is not only an infrastructure investment. It is also an education and workforce development strategy, connecting students to the technical competencies that employers increasingly need.

There is also a resilience dimension to this work. Modernized school buildings can support continuity during outages, improve indoor environmental conditions, and provide safer, more reliable spaces for learning and community use. In that sense, school infrastructure is not just about efficiency or technology adoption. It is about public readiness, civic resilience, and the long-term health of the communities those buildings serve.

Because when students learn in buildings that operate as intelligent systems, those buildings become classrooms themselves.

Closing Reflection

The refinancing cycle is telling us something important.

Buildings are no longer valued only for their physical structure. They are judged by their ability to participate in a connected, intelligent world.

For Michigan schools, the question is no longer: How do we maintain what we built? It is: How do we transform what we inherited into something that can carry us forward?

The real choice is not whether schools will change. It is whether districts will change them deliberately—before they become liabilities that are increasingly expensive to operate and harder to justify in a digital age. The opportunity is not merely to modernize buildings. It is to modernize the public purpose they serve.

That is the work ahead.

And it is already underway.

References

Bombal, D. (2026, June 19). Will this replace PoE (Power over Ethernet)? [Video]. Host David Bombal featuring Denise Lee and Stephen Kelly of the Cisco/NTT DATA partnership on energy networking systems and fault-managed power delivery.. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kHIYtSLbTU

Lee, D. (2026). Energy Networking Systems: Supercharge the Network with Power & Cooling. Cisco Live. Retrieved from https://www.ciscolive.com/c/dam/r/ciscolive/emea/docs/2026/pdf/CENGRN-2200.pdf

Further Reading