Note: Louisiana legislators will decide what to do with a significant surplus of cash available to the state in the next legislative session in March. Ahead of the session, The Reveille is dedicating a string of stories looking at LSU’s infrastructure. This story is the first in the ongoing series.
Since he began studying natural resource ecology and management at LSU in 2019, Jackson Martingayle has encountered a multitude of maintenance problems in the Renewable Natural Resources building.
In a Jan. 8 tweet, Martingayle photographed one of the building’s hallways, where the ceiling is covered in tarps collecting water that is then funneled into multiple trash cans.
“It’s been like this the whole three years,” Martingayle said.
Another student, natural resource ecology and management senior Grace Rosseau, said the tarps, water collection buckets and other problems related to the leaking ceiling have been there for even longer, dating back to her freshman year.
“When it rains outside of the building, it also rains inside,” Rosseau said.
Built in 1986, the building sits on Tower Drive on the south side of campus – a four-minute walk from Partick F. Taylor Hall, one of the largest free-standing academic engineering buildings in the country.
Michael Kaller, coordinator of undergraduate studies at the School of Renewable Natural Resources, said that he has been experiencing trouble in the building since 2008 when Hurricane Gustav – one of the worst storms to hit Baton Rouge – caused at least $12 million in damage across campus.
Things only got worse from there, Kaller said.
Around that time, some offices directly below the roof on the first and third floors were abandoned, Kaller said. Classrooms are still at risk of leaks.
“It’s very frustrating as a faculty member that our main classroom we use the most is leaking,” he said. “Fortunately it doesn’t leak directly on students, we moved the seats that way, but it is still frustrating. It’s also frustrating that my colleagues can’t be in the building.”
Peeling paint, spotty internet connection and instances of what seems to be mold inside the air vents have also plagued the building for years, students and faculty said.
The building’s exterior fares no better, showing signs of deterioration in its foundation and a warped PVC pipe holding up another piece of collapsing roof, under which sit unusable bike racks.
Despite the laundry list of problems expressed by both professors and students, the only listed deferred maintenance for the building is for the cracked foundation and exterior walls, which is set to cost $2.6 million, according to LSU’s deferred maintenance list.
The list of deferred maintenance needs at LSU totals over $630 million.
Bryan Andries, executive director of Facility Services, said that the state has allocated $5 million to addressing the issues within the building, including repairing the roof and updating the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.
The plan also includes renovations like a new lighting system, something that would fix the “dingey” atmosphere that Rosseau feels the building currently has.
LSU Planning, Design and Construction is set to oversee the project.
The updates to the building are scheduled to begin in May and be completed by December, Roger Husser, assistant vice president of LSU Planning, Design and Construction said.
“This is a state-funded and state-contracted project, and the schedule could be delayed,” Husser said.
In the years she has spent in the building, Rosseau said she noticed how outdated the building is, with some of the last blackboards on campus, a 1960s feel and a “might-fall-on-her-at-any-given-moment personality.”
The goal of the plan to renovate the building aims to address this by bringing the building up to date and repairing the systems “that are beyond life,” Andries said.
Still, despite the changes planned for the building, the department’s professors and students are longing for more to bring the headquarters of their program into the present day.
Kaller said it’s a necessity to have safe and reliable parking for their trucks and boats used for field work, as well as modern lab equipment for students, who he feels are getting a subpar educational experience at the moment.
“It’s a matter of making a great program phenomenal,” Kaller said.
The entrance of the renewable natural resources building shows molding on the air vent Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, on Ag Center Lane in Baton Rouge, La.
