LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva has a new vision for Tiger Stadium, one of the most iconic landmarks on the LSU campus.

That vision includes the installation of 430 new purple and gold windows, a $3.6 million project to increase the stadium’s aesthetic appeal and protect it from the dangers of moisture seeping in.

Alleva said the stadium is long overdue for a facelift.

“We do all this stuff to the outside, so it’s a shame it’s taken this long to do something about those windows,” Alleva said.

The preliminary plan is to replace a bank of 12 windows in the next two weeks before football season to give fans a preview of what the construction will look like.

The money for the project will be privately raised, Alleva said, by selling each window for $2,000. Seventy-five windows on the north side have already been sold.

Alleva said the goal for the windows’ completion is the end of the 2010 football season. He hopes alumni who lived in the Tiger Stadium dormitories — opened in the 1930s and closed in the ’80s — will be inclined to purchase windows to expedite the renovation process.

“We hope people will say, ‘Wow,’ and hopefully they’ll want to help us out,” Alleva said. “We’re reaching out to fans, and there were guys who used to live in those dorms, so there’s sentimental value there. I hope that’s something that gets going where people say, ‘Hey, I lived in that dorm. I’ll buy a window!’”

Eddie Nunez, senior associate athletic director for internal affairs and development, said it is critical for the LSU community to recognize the significance of the window renovation, which he called “Alleva’s brainchild.”

“Tiger Stadium is an enormous structure that people come to see,” Nunez said. “It is important to invest time in enhancing the facility.”

Nunez agreed with Alleva’s assertion that the purpose of the window overhaul is two-fold — visual improvement and protection from environmental hazards.

“The windows need sealing properly to keep the elements outside so we don’t crush the facility from the inside out,” Nunez said.

The most recent renovation to Tiger Stadium before the windows came in 2009, when a 27-foot-high by 80-foot-wide high-definition video board was added to the north end zone.

Tiger Stadium’s capacity of 92,400 puts it in the top 10 largest college football stadiums in the country.