It’s been clear for years that Baton Rouge’s cornerstone recreational feature, the LSU lakes, needs attention.
Multiple studies have been conducted on the lakes’ poor health and overabundance of algae—blamed on its shallow depth. Civic leaders have called for improved connectivity from the lakes to surrounding neighborhoods. And users, who include the walkers, joggers and naturalists who traverse its periphery, have asked for safer trails and better recreational amenities.
Now, the much-anticipated overhaul of the lakes is about to begin in earnest.
A late-April announcement by Gov. John Bel Edwards and Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome reported that the $35 million required for the first phase of improvements is fully in place.
Another $31 million in funding will be used for subsequent phases of work, but not all of it is available yet.
The initial work includes restoring the lakes’ health through dredging and stump removal, making improvements along May Street between City Park and University lakes, and adding an alternative pedestrian path to traffic-heavy Stanford Avenue. Following these projects, additional funding will likely need to be secured for other recreational features, says LSU Foundation President and CEO Robert M. Stuart.
“Let’s get past the dredging and making the lakes healthy and reducing flood risk,” Stuart says. “After that, there could be a need for private fundraising to go along with other potential [public] sources to help with those amenities.”
Read the full story about the project and what’s happening at the lakes this summer from the latest edition of Business Report.
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