BATON ROUGE - Keeping with its proposed timetable, the LSU Foundation is forging ahead with the Lakes restoration project.

Tuesday morning the group selected two engineering firms to serve as project advisor. 

"It's a very complex project from an engineering standpoint," explained Rob Stuart, with the LSU Real Estate and Facilities Foundation. 

Brailsford and Dunlavey and CSRS will be jointly advising the foundation on how to implement BRAF's 2016 master plan. 

"A lot of this will be putting together one design and exactly how to design and build the project, and secondly is how to sequence what we're doing relative to the funds that are available," Stuart said. 

Both firms have worked with LSU before, most notably on Nicholson Gateway. 

"A lot of it is kind of above the surface. There's a significant amount of engineering that needs to be done on the lakes, so a significant part of what we did in this whole process was really looking at the engineering capabilities of the firm and both of these have terrific engineering capabilities."

The project, which includes getting the lakes healthy and extensive landscape architecture improvements, is slated to cost $50 million. Funding has been secured from half a dozen organizations, including BREC, LSU and the state. 

The firms will also provide a plan on how the finances will be allocated. 

"We really need to have the project much more scoped out by the time the legislature is in session," Stuart added.

LSU wants the firms to have a solid plan on how to proceed with the project by spring.