The area between the Food Science Building and Tureaud Hall has been quiet lately, but construction on a new AgCenter laboratory in that area could resume as early as this fall.Roger Husser, AgCenter Facilities Planning director, said the construction project, expected to cost $20 million once completed, will begin in the fall if the Louisiana Legislature approves funding. But there’s no way to know when it will be approved, Husser said.Once completed, the building will be used as a laboratory by the Food Science and Veterinary Science departments and the School of Animal Sciences. Construction on the building will take about two years to complete once started and is projected to cost about $17.4 million, Husser said.Husser said utility work on the construction site was finished last fall and cost about $1.6 million. Planning costs will also be added to the total.Mark Legendre, chief fiscal officer in AgCenter Accounting Services, said budget cuts will not affect the construction of the building, but they could affect the laboratory once it is built.”Once we go to staff it and operate it four or five years down the road, [budget cuts] could affect the operating budget,” Legendre said.Husser said the utility work on the construction site went as planned, and one-third of air conditioning units on campus were temporarily shut down to relocate the utilities.Kenneth Courtade, Facility Development manager, said the building is a capital outlay project. “Capital outlay is funding provided to the state of Louisiana through legislature each year,” Courtade said.New projects are put on a list to be reviewed each year and must be approved before they can be included on a bill and funded.The AgCenter is its own college, and requests submitted for state funding from officials are separate from those submitted by the University’s main campus, Courtade said.–Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]