The LSU Property Foundation has issued a request for proposals to five developers interested in developing LSU’s Nicholson Gateway Project—a mixed-use retail and residential project that will be developed on 28 acres along Nicholson Drive between Skip Bertman Drive and West Chimes Street.
The foundation selected the five developers from a pool of 10, who had responded in August to a request for qualifications issued by the foundation earlier last summer.
“We were very pleased with the quality of the responses,” says LSU Foundation spokeswoman Sara Crow.
The RFPs are due Nov. 2. From those, a short list of two or three finalists will be selected to visit the campus. A finalist will be named in early 2016, with an estimated groundbreaking some 18 months later.
The LSU Property Foundation is the arm of the LSU Foundation that handles property-related matters, and it is handling the development of the Nicholson Gateway on behalf of the university. The project is one of several key development projects expected to revitalize the Nicholson Drive corridor.
No final price tag for the project has been determined, nor has the specific number of apartment units been nailed down. Those crucial details will be finalized as part of the negotiations with the developer.
Target completion for at least the first phase of the project is fall 2018.
—Stephanie Riegel
