BATON ROUGE, LA—Louisiana’s flagship university is getting a big building for an even bigger program.������

Planned for construction on Louisiana State University’s South Stadium Drive, across from the athletic department’s iconic Tiger Stadium, the new $107 million Construction & Advanced Manufacturing building will serve one of the top construction programs in the nation: LSU’s Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management. The new building will be a significant upgrade from the program’s current location at Patrick F. Taylor Hall, offering enhanced laboratories for construction studies, additional faculty space, and increased capacity for advanced machinery and manufacturing. The new building is a central part of LSU’s broader initiative to advance construction education and research, with the ultimate aim of establishing a dedicated School of Construction. The project is essential to expanding LSU’s engineering corridor and reinforcing Louisiana’s leadership in industrial construction and manufacturing. With the industry projected to grow by 14.3% by 2030, and the Gulf Coast facing a staggering $60-80 billion backlog in construction, this addition is crucial for the region’s workforce and economic future, preparing students to meet the industry’s evolving demands. ��

“LSU is poised to be the best construction management and engineering science program in the United States, and a top global leader,” former LSU President William F. Tate IV said at the University’s statewide bus tour debuting the new project. “Improved campus infrastructure provides a platform to seize that opportunity. This is a booming industry in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast. Many of our alumni are now leading companies that are shaping the future of the construction industry. Their generosity and shared vision have created the momentum that will yield a generational impact for Louisiana, Louisiana-based companies, and Louisiana-educated talent.”�� ��

When completed, the new building will also improve cross-campus and interdisciplinary collaboration by co-locating advanced manufacturing spaces spanning multiple disciplines. State-of-the-art facilities for innovative materials production will be housed in the new building as well as three-dimensional printing rooms and new construction spaces incorporating the latest innovations in artificial intelligence and integrated sensing.��

“We are extremely fortunate that we have such a large concentration of construction companies located right here in Baton Rouge,” said Vicki Colvin said, dean of the LSU College of Engineering. “In recent years this sector has been the single largest employer of LSU engineers, including mechanical and electrical engineers.”��

Colvin added that the new building will catalyze industry-university collaborations that produce practical innovations that lead to faster, less expensive and safer building practices.��

LSU hopes to raise $76 million in philanthropic donations for the project by spring 2026, and has already received $32 million in capital outlay funds from the State of Louisiana. In addition, $36.3 million has been received from donors to date, including a $15 million leadership gift from Art Favre, founder of Performance Contractors and a graduate of the first LSU construction management class in 1972, and a $7.5 million investment from construction company MMR, owned by LSU alumnus Pepper Rutland.��

Construction is on track with that of LSU’s new Library Learning Commons, which will transform the campus in similar ways in terms of opportunity and research. Both projects align with LSU’s Scholarship First Agenda, an initiative committing to creating solutions and achieving excellence in research, agriculture, biomedical, coastal, defensive and energy efforts.��

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SHREVEPORT, La.—Architect Perkins&Will’s Houston studio is under contract with Louisiana State University’s Shreveport campus to design an educational and advanced laboratory facility. Accordingly, the Center for Medical Education and the Center for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT) will be located at LSU Health Shreveport, a major teaching hospital in the region. The two facilities will jointly address a dearth of healthcare in the Gulf region.

LSU Health Shreveport entails the School of Medicine, the School of Allied Health Professions and the School of Graduate Studies—and the construction project will allow students to study collectively at the new spaces. The research-centric Center for Medical Education is being designed by Perkins&Will alongside the neighboring Center for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT), which will have a separate third-floor entrance but will be simultaneously accessible from the Center for Medical Education and the nearby School of Allied Health Professions. Both buildings were generated thanks to personnel at both Perkins&Will and Coleman Partners Architects—and collectively they represent the first new construction at LSU Health Shreveport in over a decade.

On the exterior, students and visitors will be greeted by a large superstructure that seems to fly above the entrance plaza. Once inside, the facility is to offer modern spaces that blend recreational and lecture spaces over multiple floors, alongside the traditional clinical experiment spaces and classrooms. Contemporary laboratories will be set up to focus on such specialties as bacteriology, clinical pathology, serology, media prep and cell culture.

The entire building will allow in natural sunlight via rather large windows. The building will also be host to a 500-seat in-the-round auditorium, as well as a 250-set “active learning” classroom replete with up-to-date AV capabilities. Amenities within will include a student wellness center, fitness class areas, meditation spaces as well as spaces devoted to healthy cooking classes.

Lemoine, based in Alabama but operating from several offices in Louisiana, will serve as the project’s general contractor. Lemoine is working with Perkins&Will to coordinate buildout of safe spaces designed for biocontainment, which is especially important when working with potentially dangerous pathogens.

In a statement to �鶹������, Andrew Brown, senior project architect from the Houston studio of Perkins&Will, said that a key aspect of the project will be to fashion a “major destination” at LSU Shreveport as well as update the campus for 21st century medical education.

“The Center for Medical Education and Wellness will be a link between several educational buildings and really helps to stitch a student-centric seam through the campus,” Brown said, adding that the feedback from students and the larger academic community on design renderings has been overwhelmingly positive. “Our team was very focused on bringing the latest best practice design solutions for medical education, learning, and research so that this facility could serve to enhance health outcomes in the local community and beyond. I am excited to see it occupied, and believe people will be surprised with how much this facility supports collaboration and interaction amongst the students and faculty.”

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The 536-foot leisure pool is just one of the key highlights of a larger renovation of the University Recreation (UREC) facilities, including the Student Recreation Center that opened in 1992, according to the university . The $84.75 million renovation project began in 2013 and has been completed in three phases, with a grand-opening celebration scheduled for Sept. 8 to announce the entire project completion. Locally based GraceHebert Architects and Kansas City, Mo.-based 360 Architecture (acquired by HOK in 2015) were tasked with designing the project.

Phase I included an expansion of the current field complex, including moving and replacing four lighted softball fields and four lighted multipurpose fields as well as creating a new Challenge Course across from the Student Recreation Center. Then, Phase II included the addition of nine new tennis courts and an additional 344 parking spaces at the rec center, both of which debuted in fall 2014.

In addition to the lazy river pool, this latest Phase III part of the project includes an update to the indoor swimming pool, a redesign of the rec center’s locker rooms and moving administration offices to the front of the facility to better serve students. A 13,000-square-foot expansion of the cardio and weight space to 40,431 square feet also enhances the space for students as well as the addition of an indoor jogging trail, turfed CrossFit training slope, 35-foot climbing wall, three more multipurpose courts and a Fitness Assessment Center.

In March, UREC reactivated its main entrance, which attracted a massive amount of students to come explore the facilities. Laurie Braden, executive director of UREC, an 89 percent increase in student use in the month of March. A majority of those students were individuals who had never used the facilities in the past.

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