By Dale Crawford, Executive Director, Steel Tube Institute
AI, advanced manufacturing, and electrification are reshaping the demands placed on commercial and industrial buildings. These investments are moving rapidly from planning to construction, requiring owners and design teams to make infrastructure decisions that will influence facility performance for decades. Facilities constructed today are expected to operate for decades, yet the equipment, electrical loads and operational requirements inside them may change several times over. Long term resilience increasingly depends on infrastructure decisions made well before a facility opens its doors.
The equipment inside a facility changes much faster than the building itself. Data centers are supporting higher computing densities, manufacturers are adding automation and electrified processes, and those changes place new demands on the electrical systems behind them.
Owners and design teams need to look beyond opening day requirements. A design that works for today’s equipment also needs a clear path for higher loads and expansion. Without that flexibility, the constraint often becomes apparent after the facility is operating, when solving it is more complicated and disruptive.
Electrical upgrades get harder once a building is occupied. Increasing capacity or installing new equipment often means working around existing operations while modifying conductors, raceways, distribution equipment and other systems. Work that is straightforward during initial construction looks very different when production is running or uptime has to be maintained.
That disruption looks different depending on the facility, but the stakes are real. A manufacturer has production schedules to maintain. A data center has uptime requirements. A hospital has essential services that cannot simply stop while electrical systems are reworked. Those realities need to be part of the design conversation before construction is complete, not when the first major upgrade arrives.
The practical question is simple: What will be difficult to change later?
No one knows exactly what equipment will operate inside a facility 20 or 30 years from now, and trying to predict it is the wrong exercise. Focus instead on the systems that will be hardest to change later and make sure today’s design leaves room to work with them.
Start with electrical pathways, areas likely to need more capacity and components expected to remain in place through several equipment cycles. Plan for maintenance and modernization from the beginning.
Raceway systems are one example. Properly designed and installed steel conduit provides durable mechanical protection and supports effective grounding and bonding. In facilities expected to undergo multiple generations of equipment and electrical upgrades, those proven performance characteristics can support reliable operation as facility needs evolve.
Construction budgets matter, but the consequences of an infrastructure decision don’t end when the construction team leaves.
A facility operating for 30, 40 or 50 years will go through equipment replacements, electrical upgrades and renovations. The systems installed during initial construction directly influence how difficult and disruptive that work becomes.
Consider an electrical upgrade in an operating manufacturing facility. The owner is not just paying for materials and labor. Extensive demolition or a longer shutdown can affect production and increase the disruption surrounding the project. Look at what will remain in place through equipment changes, how crews will access those systems and what happens to operations when modifications are required. Those questions provide a more complete picture of value than installation alone.
That is why lifecycle value belongs in the decision from the start.
Mission critical facilities have long understood the relationship between infrastructure and operational continuity.
That same discipline belongs in other high demand facilities. Advanced manufacturing increasingly depends on automation and electrically powered production equipment. Hospitals depend on electrical systems for essential services. Food processing and energy facilities have their own continuity requirements.
The lesson isn’t to design every building like a data center. It’s to bring the same discipline to long-term planning. Focus on where downtime creates the greatest risk, which systems will be difficult to modify once operations begin and where future expansion is most likely. Make those decisions early, while the design team still has the flexibility to address them.
Resilience also means being able to support new equipment, added capacity and necessary upgrades without turning each change into a major disruption.
One of the best questions a design team can ask is: What happens when this facility needs its first major electrical upgrade?
We are already seeing this play out as AI and other high demand technologies change what existing facilities need to support. A recent expansion announced for an Illinois data center, for example, will more than double its UPS-supported capacity as part of a broader infrastructure upgrade.
For owners and design teams, the takeaway is to think about that first major upgrade before it arrives. Identify where electrical demand is likely to grow, which systems crews will need to access and how work will be completed around ongoing operations.
Clear documentation is part of that preparation. The engineer or contractor working on a facility 15 years from now probably will not be the person who designed it. Well-established systems and clear documentation give that team a familiar starting point.
The real test of infrastructure planning comes years after construction, when a facility needs more capacity, replacement equipment or a different use. The decisions made during design determine how many options owners and project teams have when that moment arrives.
The pace of technological change will continue to reshape the way commercial and industrial facilities are designed and constructed. Facilities designed to accommodate changing technologies and operational needs with minimal disruption will be better equipped to maintain operational continuity and support future growth. Long term resilience depends on infrastructure decisions that allow facilities to evolve alongside the technologies they are built to support. The infrastructure decisions made today will continue delivering value long after construction is complete.
About the Author:
Dale Crawford is the Executive Director of the Steel Tube Institute (STI), where he leads the organization’s efforts to advance the use and competitiveness of steel tubular products across North America. In this role, he works with manufacturers, engineers, contractors, and policymakers to support domestic manufacturing and infrastructure through industry advocacy, engagement in building codes and technical standards, and government relations on issues including sustainability, fair trade, and resilient construction. He also serves as STI’s Director of Steel Conduit, overseeing the strategic initiatives and technical programs of the Institute’s Conduit Section, which represents North America’s leading manufacturers of steel electrical conduit.
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