The Nicholson Gateway project revitalized student living on the western side of campus. The project, originally planned in 2006, is the University’s latest example of its continual effort to renovate and improve on-campus housing for students. With the Campus Master Plan as a guide, the University aims to innovate on-campus transportation and increase its enrollment capacity.
The Campus Master Plan was drafted in October 2017 to accommodate the University’s pre-planned enrollment growth. The University set its undergraduate enrollment goal at 35,565 students, which meant increasing enrollment by over 1,000 students per year for the six years following the finalization of the Campus Master Plan.
The University saw that enrollment increase this year, welcoming the largest freshman class in history with over 5,800 students under its “holistic” admissions policy. The Campus Master Plan addresses classroom space, parking, housing and dining.
“The University’s administration set a goal for student enrollment,” said Assistant Vice President of Planning, Design and Construction Roger Husser. “Then we developed a master plan to accommodate that. Rather than determining what our maximum capacity is, the idea is to develop campus over time to accommodate that aspiration of enrollment growth.”
Campus currently has enough beds to accommodate a 10 percent enrollment growth on campus, according to the Executive Director of Residential Life Steve Waller. This fall, Residential Life has a dorm
capacity of 5,200 and an on-campus apartment capacity of 2,900. However, occupancy figures for both dorms and apartments are currently far below maximum capacity, with dorms 90 percent full and apartments 72 percent full. Five hundred dorm beds sit empty, according to Waller.
Waller expects the campus dorm capacity to remain consistent in the near future despite planned enrollment increases. If more housing is needed for freshmen, Residential Life may delay tearing down older dorms, such as Kirby Smith Hall, to accommodate those students.
The Campus Master Plan calls for the construction of four new dorms on the current greenhouse lot located in the eastern part of campus near the UREC complex. The four dorms, expected to be constructed by 2023, will house around 850 students total and serve as a replacements for Kirby Smith, Herget, Miller and Broussard halls, according to Waller.
Residential Life also anticipates more upperclassmen to live on campus with the completion of Nicholson Gateway. Waller believes that finishing construction of the complex with its numerous restaurants and Matherne’s Market will create a positive image of Gateway, displaying a superior product unrivaled by student housing options in the oversaturated Baton Rouge market.
Some students, such as biochemistry sophomore Mallory Brignac, more concerned with the availability of parking on campus than residential life expansion.
“If you don’t get here early in the morning, it’s a nightmare to park,” Brignac said. “Even if you get here early, the buildings are too far away. It takes up too much time to park and walk to class.”
The campus redevelopment and planned construction of new buildings, such as Middleton Library, will take away surface parking options for students. The development has a dual effect on parking since additional buildings constructed for the anticipated enrollment and faculty growth take away designated parking spaces while ultimately adding to the need for more parking to accommodate the new faculty and students according to Husser.
The loss of surface area will likely lead to more parking garages on campus. The University currently has .75 parking spaces per university affiliate, much higher than SEC peers such as Arkansas and Tennessee, which offer .44 and .57 parking spaces per affiliate, respectively, according to the Campus Master Plan.
“We have run out of space on the LSU campus to continue to add surface parking,” Husser said. “There is just no space left to do that.”
The Campus Master Plan also calls for the University to develop alternative ways to improve transportation and mobility on campus through the usage of micro-transits like bikeshares.
Classrooms only account for 4 percent of the entire campus area, according to Husser. The University currently operates 330 classrooms, but the Campus Master Plan determined no additional classrooms would need to be built if enrollment increases to 35,565. Instead, the University would improve the efficiency of classroom utilization, such as increasing the number of classes held in classrooms on a weekly basis according to the Campus Master Plan.
After years of enrollment drops jeopardized the Campus Master Plan, this fall’s largest freshman class in history admitted under holistic admissions solidified plans for campus expansion and redevelopment within the next decade.