By TODD HORNE, Executive Editor
Attorney William Most said Monday at the Baton Rouge Press Club that a lawsuit challenging LSU’s economic development districts is not aimed at stopping the school’s proposed new arena, but at what he described as an illegal and unconstitutional effort to impose taxes without voter approval and potentially steer public money toward a private development project.
Most, who represents plaintiff Darrell Glasper Sr., said the lawsuit is built around a principle “as old as the United States.”
“No taxation without representation,” Most said.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 17 in the 19th Judicial District Court, challenges the legality of the Louisiana State University Economic Development District and the LSU EDD Athletic Subdistrict. The petition alleges the districts were structured to raise sales and hotel occupancy taxes from businesses near LSU without allowing voters to approve or reject the taxes.
LSU had not returned messages seeking comment as of publication.
The petition alleges the LSU EDD was created to raise taxes on more than 100 businesses near LSU without voter approval and could collect approximately $161 million in sales and hotel taxes over 30 years. The petition says the LSU EDD board approved a 1% sales tax and 1% hotel occupancy tax beginning Oct. 1, 2025. It also says the Athletic Subdistrict later moved toward imposing its own 1% sales tax and 1% hotel occupancy tax.
Most said the case is not an attack on LSU’s desire to build a new arena.
“This lawsuit is not trying to stop the arena,” Most said. “It’s not saying the arena is bad. It’s not taking any position whether it’s good or bad.”
Instead, Most said, the case is about whether LSU-linked taxing districts can collect public money without voter approval and use that money to support a privately developed arena project.
“If you are going to build an arena and if you are going to tax people to support this private, privately developed arena and use taxpayer money for it, you have to let the taxpayers choose,” Most said. “You have to let the voters choose.”
Most said the districts were created after LSU-related officials tried to draw boundaries around campus and nearby commercial areas while excluding voters.
“What they were trying to do was draw a map that would exclude any voters,” Most said. “Because if you can draw your squiggly lines in a way that avoids anywhere where anyone lives, then maybe you don’t have to have an election to approve a sales tax increase.”
Most said that effort ran into a basic problem: people live around LSU.
“They kept running into the problem that people live there,” Most said. “There are people living in that area around LSU.”
The lawsuit alleges that after voters were identified inside proposed boundaries, the Legislature passed Act 203 of 2023, which created the LSU EDD and excluded residential properties from the district. The petition argues that exclusion was used to create a district with businesses but no voters.
Most said the law did not solve LSU’s problem because it excluded property used for residential purposes only as of the effective date of the act.
“People move,” Most said. “Just because there weren’t any voters in 2023 on a particular date doesn’t mean that you can be confident that there’s nobody there now.”
The lawsuit also argues the district boundaries are legally uncertain because determining whether a property is inside the district requires knowing whether it was used for residential purposes in June 2023. Most used Louie’s Cafe as an example.
“If you want to buy that piece of property and have a different business on it, you might want to know, am I going to be subject to these 2% sales taxes?” Most said. “There’s no way for you to know whether you’re in the district or out of the district, because you won’t know if someone was living in the back room in June 2023.”
The petition also alleges that public statements about the tax revenue did not match private communications. It quotes LSU EDD board member John Engquist as saying at a Metro Council meeting that “there is no use been determined right now; that will happen at a future date.” But the lawsuit also quotes private communications attributed to attorney Charles Landry saying the arena project “gets both cents of new taxes” and that “has been the deal from day one.”
Most repeated that point Monday.
“There’s this giant mismatch between what they were telling the public that this tax money was going to be used for and then in private, there was this secret plan to use it for the arena,” Most said.
The phrase “both cents” refers to the two possible 1% tax layers: one from the LSU EDD and one from the Athletic Subdistrict.
Most said the defendants have not yet filed their formal response. He said the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office has notified his side it will represent the districts, and that an extension has been granted for the response.
“We don’t really know what the defense is,” Most said.
Asked whether eliminating the taxes would endanger the arena project, Most said he did not know whether the project could survive without the tax revenue. But he said if the arena depends on the challenged taxes, that strengthens the argument for voter approval.
“If these taxes are vital to the project, then all the more reason that voters should have a say in it,” Most said.
Most also said he does not know where the tax money is now or whether both layers of tax are currently being collected.
The LSU EDD tax began Oct. 1, 2025, according to the lawsuit. Most said his public-records requests do not bring him fully up to the current moment.
“I’ve heard that the taxes are being collected, although I haven’t seen that directly,” Most said. “And the short answer is, I don’t know where the money is.”
That answer leaves several major unanswered questions: how much has been collected, where the money is deposited, who controls it, and whether any of it has been spent, transferred, pledged, escrowed or promised to any arena-related entity.
The lawsuit also challenges the makeup of the LSU EDD board. Act 203 requires two board members to be representatives from businesses within the district. The petition alleges the board has only one clear representative from a business inside the district: Clarke Cadzow, owner of Highland Coffees.
Asked whether two EDD board members must represent businesses within the district, Most said yes.
“You’re right, that is a requirement,” Most said. “We’ve looked at these board members, tried to figure out if there are two that could be fairly described as representatives of businesses within the district as required by the law.”
The lawsuit names the board members as John Engquist, Robert Stuart, Rhoman Hardy, Matt Lee and Cadzow. It alleges H&E Equipment Services has no locations in the district, Bernhard Capital Partners’ office is outside the district, and Stuart, the LSU Foundation president, is not a representative of a for-profit business inside the district.
Most also said the case raises a constitutional question about gratuitous donation, a Louisiana law principle that generally prohibits public entities from giving public funds or things of value to private parties without receiving equivalent value in return.
“Government can’t give its stuff away to private actors,” Most said. “There’s got to be something in exchange that the government entity gets if it gives something to a private person.”
The lawsuit alleges that if tax money is directed to private arena developers without sufficient return value to the districts, that would violate Louisiana’s prohibition on gratuitous donations of public funds.
Most said the issue is sharpened by the proposed land structure, because the Athletic Subdistrict is expected to be the landlord for the arena site.
“Usually the tenant pays money to the landlord,” Most said. “That’s part of the problem here.”
The petition alleges the arena entity would execute a 50-year ground sublease with the LSU EDD Athletic Subdistrict for rights to the 30-acre arena project site, with additional options. It also alleges the Athletic Subdistrict would receive rent from Oak View Group, the private arena developer.
Most said the larger public issue is whether government officials can use special districts to impose taxes without risking voter rejection.
“If this works, if these public officials have found a way to raise sales taxes without having to risk the voters saying no, will they do it again?” Most said.
The lawsuit remains pending in the 19th Judicial District Court.
Explainer: LSU fits a broader university development trend
LSU’s proposed arena and tax-district structure also fits into a broader national trend: major universities are increasingly using public-private partnerships, campus-adjacent development districts and special financing tools to build arenas, entertainment districts, research campuses and mixed-use projects without simply asking the state or university to pay the full construction bill upfront.
The model is becoming familiar across college campuses: a university controls valuable land, a private developer brings capital and operating experience, and a special district or tax-increment structure helps support infrastructure, debt, public improvements or project economics.
The University of Texas’ Moody Center is one high-profile example. UT partnered with Oak View Group and Live Nation on a privately financed arena built on university land, a model often cited in discussions of modern college arena development.
Other universities have pursued similar district-style development strategies. The University of Oklahoma-linked Norman arena and entertainment district has involved a tax-increment financing debate. UC Davis’ Aggie Square project in Sacramento has used an enhanced infrastructure financing district to help fund infrastructure around a university-led innovation district. The University of Tennessee has pursued a public-private entertainment district near Neyland Stadium on university-owned land.
But the LSU case stands out because the lawsuit alleges the tax district was structured to impose new sales and hotel occupancy taxes without voter approval. That is different from the broader, more common argument that a public-private partnership can help a university build a facility without directly funding the entire project.
LSU’s arena proposal is part of a national movement toward university-controlled real estate development. The legal fight in Baton Rouge is over whether LSU’s version crossed a line by creating a voterless taxing structure and allegedly tying tax proceeds to a private arena project while publicly saying no final use had been determined.
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