The Arlington Campus, housing the School of Law, was added in 1979 and the Prince William campus opened in the fall of 1997. By 1980 enrollment was 13,000. Enrollment has grown to 24,180 as of fall 1999 and George Mason University is now comprised of 126 buildings on 806 acres of land at three campuses. The Physical Plant Department is responsible for the university's built environment, which includes building and grounds operations, maintenance, repair and faculty upgrades in support of the educational mission of the university. The university's physical plant consists of almost 4.5 million square feet of facilities with an annual maintenance and utility budget of 12 million dollars.
Work is accomplished through a mix of in-house and outsourced contracted services.
Approximately 170 in-house personnel concentrate on daily operations, breakdown maintenance, preventative maintenance and deferred maintenance tasks. Outsourced services are used to augment in-house personnel to accomplish nonrecurring renovations and major repairs. Exceptions to this are the use of supplemental contractors for grounds maintenance, elevator maintenance, trash removal and janitorial contractors for ongoing routine work. This includes timekeeping functions, recruitment, personnel job descriptions, performance evaluations and disciplinary and grievance procedures. The Work Control Branch comprises three groups critical to the planning and execution of building, grounds, and equipment maintenance.