The Louisiana Division of Administration announced this week the $100 million expansion of the College of Engineering building on the LSU campus is moving forward with the Lemoine Company taking over the project.
As previously reported by Daily Report, plans for the expansion of Patrick F. Taylor Hall fell behind schedule earlier this year, after contract negotiations between the state and the project’s originally selected construction manager—a joint venture between global construction giant Skanska and locally owned MAPP Construction—fell through.
At the time, state officials said that in the process of negotiating over construction costs, Skanska-MAPP consistently came back several million dollars over the $88 million in hard costs the state had budgeted. The Lemoine Company was the second-highest bidder on the project.
Construction on the project is scheduled to begin later this month and is back on track to be completed in 2017. Once completed, Patrick F. Taylor Hall will be among the largest free-standing engineering buildings in the nation, with more than 462,000 square feet that includes laboratory space, a 250-seat auditorium, an academic support center and an addition connected by an atrium.
—Stephanie Riegel
