The LSU Real Estate and Facilities Foundation plans to issue a Request for Proposals early next week for a project adviser to oversee the restoration and enhancement of the six-lake system that runs through City Park and LSU.
The RFP will solicit proposals from firms interested in serving as a project adviser or program manager throughout the duration of what is expected to be a multiyear project topping $50 million.
Responses will be due in early January.
LSU REFF Chairman Robert Stuart says the project adviser will play a key role in bringing to fruition the lakes project, which was unveiled in mid-November by Gov. John Bel Edwards and the various stakeholders who will play a role in the process.
The project adviser will be expected to give input into what the design, engineering and landscaping should be, as well as the qualifications for the engineering firm that will oversee the actual lake dredging.
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 dollar amount has been promised by any of the entities and not all of the money will be needed at the same time, anyway.
“They will help us with the fact that there are various funding sources but some have to be used for different parts of the project; others will come available at different times,” Stuart says. “So they need to help us structure this, help figure out how it will come together.”
The RFP will not include a budget for its project adviser, and Stuart says it’s too soon to say how much he thinks the adviser will ultimately cost. But he expects the services to be delivered in phases and says the management costs of the project associated with the first phase—drafting bid specs for engineering and design—should be “somewhere in the six figures,” but less than $1 million.
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 wildlife sanctuaries.
