re: Old dorms inside of Tiger Stadium

Had a couple of high school friends who lived in North Stadium dorms right next to the gate the students entered the stadium on game day.

I would stay there with them sometimes on a mattress on the floor. It didn't get much more bare bones let me tell you. But good times, good memories.

I worked for the athletic department in 2009 and got to check out all parts of the stadium. Some of the hallways were sealed with cinder blocks, so no telling what was in there. There was one hallway I went down and while some rooms were just storage...there were a few that still had the furniture and posters and what not that whoever lived there last left on the wall. Was like walking into a time capsule.

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lived in the dormsin 75-76 and pretty certain they closed them at the end of 76. Miller dorm for the girls was finish and they moved out of power so we moved into the Power girls dorms. The stadium rooms were a terrible but made Power like moving into the Hilton.

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I might know you. I lived in North Stadium fall semester ‘75 , then moved to Power in Spring’76. But at beginning of semester in Power there was no A/C. During the semester they installed a window unit. I lived Power, got to eat in the cafeteria with all the girl dorms.

While the idea of renovating and renting/leasing the space is nice, as at least one person has already said, you'd have to bring the building up to current code for the plumbing and electrical systems. Then, if the facility has asbestos insulation, that's another huge amount required for remediation.

As a small point of reference, in the 80's, there was talk of building a new City Court in downtown Baton Rouge. Preservationists pitched a fit about tearing down a "historic structure," and in the end, their argument won the day. At that time, a brand new court building would have cost $6 million. When all was said and done, the City-Parish spent $12 million saving the old "historic" building.

This is a guess on my part, but I suspect similar work today would be 4 times as much. Now multiply that by the number of square feet involved in renovating or repurposing the former dorms. I would not be surprised if the cost rivaled that of building an entirely new stadium. Since that's not going to happen, those areas are destined to remain empty, living with the memories and.ghosts of the students who once called it home.

We stayed there when playing LSU in tennis in the late 70's.Reminded me of a combo of military barracks, psych ward, charity hospital ward.

If I remember correctly, at least East Stadium and South Stadium were still open when I graduated in Dec 1989. I never lived in them, though.

The suites idea sounds great, but the hassle of getting in and out of a controlled space would be not worth it to many fans. Right now, the control points for entry into the stadium are moved away from the old gates. So, once you got inside the point of entry, going back and forth from the seats to the suite would be easy. However, you would not be able to bring pretty much anything into the suite without it being inspected. That seriously limits how much food or other amenities would be allowed. Additionally, once you were inside the perimeter, you are stuck there and cannot interact with the crowd. That's okay for North Stadium, where you could watch the team and band come down the hill, but would anyone want to be in East Stadium near the visitor's entrance?

My preferred solution would be to reconfigure the area to add bathroom and concessions space in the lower bowl. But, I doubt it will happen.

GEAUX TIGERS!

Like others have said, I know they were open until mid 80s because I lived in North Stadium, 4th or 5th floor, I can't remember, right above player entrance to locker room in fall of 1982. Those solid windows shown in original poster's post are recent installs after closure of dorms. We had roll out windows with no screens so you could hang out window on game days and look at goings on around stadium. Only problem, was when it got cold you couldn't close them all the way because they had rusted and had been painted so many times they wouldn't close all the way so we would stuff wet towels in cracks that would freeze in place because they wouldn't crank up steam plant to provide heat to radiators until so many days in a row below freezing and as you know, that doesn't happen very often in Louisiana. I don't remember heat at beginning of semester being a real issue, probably because we were so high up but could've been because I went to public school in Louisiana with no A/C so heat wasn't a bother to me.

Any Farrah Fawcet Posters on the walls? Ha!