In early February, large parts of the French House lawn were sectioned off along with surrounding sidewalk and pieces of South Campus Drive for a partial reconstruction of the honors campus’ outdoor space.
The project contributes to a trend of redesigns of LSU’s honors college, which kicked off with the French House’s Hans and Donna Sternberg Salon completing a $5 million renovation in 2016.
The construction is the first of what will shape up to be a “comprehensive redesign” of the area, with the first phase set to wrap up in May, according to Residential Life’s Associate Director of Communications and Development Catherine David.
Notable additions from this phase include an added stretch of sidewalk close to the intersection of South Campus Drive and Highland Avenue, which will connect with another piece of sidewalk close to the French House entrance, as well as the elimination of some parking spaces on South Campus Drive to create more greenspace. 
“The idea is to better define pleasant outdoor spaces for the campus community, improve drainage and irrigation infrastructure, beautify the site with plantings and improve pedestrian and mobility access,” David said.
Student opinions on the new construction project appear mixed, with some students surprised by the redesign idea and waiting to see what the result is before making a judgment on the project.
“I didn’t think any changes were necessary, as I thought the French House already looked nice, but if it turns out looking greater and better, then it’s worth it,” mechanical engineering freshman Gabe Freedman said.
But for many students, the redesign adds another layer to LSU’s on-campus parking issues, where demand for parking often exceeds the supply of parking available. Many students that try to park on campus are often forced to patrol parking lots for exceedingly long periods of time, and some risk an illegal park just to make it to class on time.
A walk through any on-campus parking lot yields the chance of seeing the yellow $300 ticket on a windshield or even a yellow tire boot, which has become increasingly common as the parking services continue to crack down on illegal parking.
The issue is compounded by LSU continuing to bring in increasingly larger freshmen classes each year. The university had 6,690 freshmen in 2020, 7,038 in 2021, and 7,637 in 2022, each year breaking the record set before it, according to LSU’s website.
“If you’re going to bring in the biggest freshman class ever and then not provide the parking, then demolish even more parking to just have more greenspace even though we have a ton of greenspace, it just seems silly to me,” mass communications freshman Michael Fontenot said.