LSU administrators will seek approval from the board of supervisors at its Thursday meeting on a plan to renovate and upgrade the women's basketball locker room and adjacent areas of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
According to the meeting agenda, the Tiger Athletic Foundation will provide complete funding for the project with the cost capped at $1.5 million.
The work could be completed substantially by Oct. 1, a little more than a month before the 2023 national champions begin their 2023-24 season. The entire project should be completed by Dec. 31, according to the proposal.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey, who guided the Tigers to the school's first women's basketball national championship April 2, has often cited the need for major improvements to the 51-year-old PMAC since leaving Baylor for LSU in April 2021.
Mulkey immediately turned around a sagging program with a successful season in 2021-22. She doubled down on her pleas for upgrades after LSU swept through the NCAA tournament this season and bashed Iowa 102-85 in the title game.
According to the agenda, specific improvements include a renovated team locker room, renovated team lounge, renovated coaches' lounge and renovated film room.
Also in the plans are a connecting corridor and entryway, along with other related improvements.
Mulkey, a Louisiana native who attended games in the PMAC as a high school phenom in the late 1970s, noted during a meeting of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge in late April that she would be pushing hard for upgrades to the aging facility.
“I can say this now. ... I just won a national championship,” she said, adding that the entire PMAC needs to be renovated or replaced with a new arena. “I’m not a visionary when it comes to thinking about a building. I just know we need to upgrade. We don’t need to put a coat of paint on it.
"It’s time to either completely renovate it or build one next to it and tear that one down."
At the time, she said she had no specific insight into which way the school might go in the future.
“I’ve shared with the administration and all the coaches who do their jobs there on what they would like to see," Mulkey said. "But they know I’m talking about it. We’ve got to get this ball rolling.”