For several months now, construction crews have made their living on Nicholson Drive, on the west side of the University’s campus. LSU Residential Life is nearing the end of construction on Nicholson Gateway and preparing for 1,500 University students to call it home.
LSU Residential Life works year-round to provide various types of housing for underclassmen, upperclassmen and graduate students. According to the Residential Life website, “From orientation to graduation, there is housing for every Tiger.”
Catherine David, the associate director of communications and development for Residential Life, said the Nicholson Gateway Extension is very close to completion. David said she expects Residential Life to have complete control of the building by late July, early August.
“It includes a retail space, a foundations building and it was just a point to really transform the Nicholson entrance to campus,” David said. “For so long, there was nothing there, and you didn’t know you entered campus once you enter those gates. This has been a priority for a while for the University, and it just took several years to do the logistics and get the funding all lined up so that we could move forward with the project.”
Getting student feedback for on-campus living was an important step in the development of Nicholson Gateway. Residential Life wanted to increase the number of beds for upperclassmen on campus. There are only about 1,200 beds in the East and West Campus Apartments combined. The Nicholson Gateway Apartments will be more than double that capacity.
In addition to Nicholson Gateway, Residential Life is adding and removing several residence halls across campus. The 2018-19 school year will be the final year for one of the University’s oldest halls, Edmund Kirby Smith.
“We build new buildings, [we] take other buildings down, we’re just in that constant cycle,” David said. “Right now, we have one residence hall opening this fall. We’ll have Cedar Hall opening next fall. After that we will be moving to the Greenhouse Project by Miller. It’s just this constant cycle.”
David explained that new halls and apartments must be added before old ones are removed to ensure the University is never short on available beds and rooms for students. This is why Kirby Smith will not be demolished until after Cedar and Spruce Halls are completed.
“We don’t want to take beds away before we can have them replaced,” David said. “That would limit the number of people who could live on campus.”
There is annual training for the staff before students arrive. The new live-in professionals are currently in training. New and returning graduate students and resident assistants will be returning in July for their normal, two-week training. Residential Life tries to have one R.A. for every 34 students in an apartment or hall.
“[Their training] is a very intensive, very thorough two-week training to get ready for all of the logistics of the building, but also dealing with student crisis,” David said. “It’s everything from students to facilities.”
The official move-in day for the Nicholson Gateway Apartments will be August 12, just as the rest of the University’s Housings, on schedule for their August opening.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Dilyn Stewart

Nicholson Gateway construction continues through the summer on on Nicholson Drive on Tuesday, June 26, 2018.