A NEW VIEW
Come fall, students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette will be able to get up close and personal with campus wildlife when construction on a pier across Cypress Lake is completed. The 80- to 90-foot-long pier is scheduled for completion in early September and will allow students, faculty and guests a more intimate view of the campus’s unique wetland, director of facility planning and construction Scott Hebert said. UL is the only college in the United States with a managed wetland in the heart of its campus. Hebert said the design for the pier has been under discussion for roughly three years. The project is part of the school’s master plan and Architects Southwest, who designed the master plan, also handled this project, he said. Heavy construction on the $500,000 project is expected to wrap up in mid-July, and then crews will begin outfitting the pier with handrails, LED lights underneath the structure and other custom design elements. Once completed, the pier will be about 10 to 12 feet wide and able to bear the weight of several hundred people, Hebert said.