Proposals are due at 5 p.m. from prospective project advisers interested in overseeing the planned restoration and enhancement of the six-lake system that runs through City Park and LSU.
LSU officials say the Request for Proposals, which was issued in early December, has generated a “strong response” from firms interested in serving as project adviser—essentially, a program manager—for what is expected to be a $50 million-plus, multiyear project.
But they won’t say specifically how many proposals they’ve received until after today’s deadline.
“We feel good about the response,” says Sara Whittaker, spokeswoman for the LSU Real Estate and Facilities Foundation, which is handling the procurement part of the project. “But it’s common for firms that are going to submit to wait until right up until the deadline, so we expect to receive more between now and 5 p.m.”
The project adviser will be expected to recommend what the design, engineering, and landscaping should be, as well as the qualifications for the engineering firm that will oversee the actual dredging of the lake.
Additionally, the adviser will need to help make sense of how funding for the project will come together. Though the state, BREC, and the city-parish have all committed funds for the project, no specific amount has been promised by any of the entities and not all of the money will be needed at the same time.
The RFP did not include a budget for its project adviser. But costs of the project associated with the first phase—drafting bid specs for engineering and design—were expected to be less than $1 million.
The LSU REFF will issue a statement next week with details of how many proposals it received and what the next steps will be, Whittaker says.
The lakes project is the brainchild of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, which funded a $1 million master plan several years ago for restoring the oxygen-starved lakes to health and enhancing the system with improved signage and lighting, recreational trails and amenities, and wildlife sanctuaries.
The project moved from the conceptual to actual planning stage in October, when Gov. John Bel Edwards and key stakeholders announced they’d come up with a plan to pay for the work.
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