"Hospital opening pushed to 2015"

Well, there you have it.

The state will be lucky if it can complete the project by the time Katrina's 10 year anniversary rolls around, if it completes it at all:

The new move-in date, according to a monthly report from Jacobs Engineering, the state's project manager, is Feb. 28, 2015, two months later than the Dec. 31, 2014, date set in the previous report and eight months later than the target at the start of last year.

Significant financing hurdles continue to loom, and the article once again lays out the notion that I've been harping on here at Inside the Footprint for the past week:

Joe Spiak, one of UMC's financial advisers representing AMS Healthcare Mortgage Corp., told the board Jan. 19 that as long as the state is pursuing bond insurance from the U.S. government, the state cannot proceed with site preparation and construction without permission from federal authorities.

As I've shown here at the blog, the state did in fact proceed with site preparation in the LSU Footprint last week despite that warning: Exhibit A, Exhibit B.