State lawmakers trying to renovate NC State’s Poe Hall face pushback from sick workers & alum fighting to preserve building as ‘evidence’

5 On Your Side asked all elected lawmakers from Wake County what the state should do with Poe Hall, the N.C. State University building that was closed after toxic chemicals were found in the building.

WRAL News also heard from the politician who pushed for $180 million in this year’s proposed budget to gut the building.

“This is the quickest way to de-skin the building, repair it and get it back in service,” said N.C. State representative Dean Arp. “We are trying to repair it as quickly as possible.”

State lawmakers are moving forward with plans to renovate the building, while sick workers and alum are fighting to preserve it.

“That’s evidence,” Sandy Alford, N.C. State alum and breast cancer survivor, said about the building.

Poe Hall is a building that hundreds of people believe may have caused their cancer. They want the building gone – just not yet.

For seven months, sick students and workers have begged the state and university to act on Poe Hall. However, they said a state budget proposal allocating up to $180 million to quickly renovate the building is not what they had in mind.

After talking with Arp, the N.C. State representative who championed the funding, WRAL’s questions to N.C. State about the funding largely went unanswered.

5 On Your Side asked 21 elected officials if it was money well spent.

Sen. Phil Berger is against it.

“At this point, I don’t know that anybody settled on exactly what the right thing to do with Poe Hall is,” he said.

Rep. Maria Cervania wrote that the state should be “addressing the health problems of the people affected.”

That’s something Chancellor Randy Woodson promised in an interview in March.

“We’re working on it,” he said in that interview.

In the three months since that interview, N.C. State has shifted its attention and resources toward a legal battle to block access to Poe Hall. WRAL’s requests to review legal fees and building testing costs have remained unanswered for more than a month.

Workers and students, who believe they fell ill from toxic chemicals inside Poe Hall, criticized N.C. State’s sampling as inadequate and unreliable – and the plan to renovate it as money not well spent.

They are currently fighting in the state’s highest court for access to Poe Hall, and they’re advocating for this before any renovations happen.

“To me this is just another attempt for them to destroy evidence and avoid liability and avoid responsibility,” said Kate Norwalk, a breast cancer survivor who taught in Poe Hall for seven years.

5 On Your Side’s Keely Arthur spoke with State Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, who said it’s unlikely the House’s budget proposal will pass, though he supports the funding.

The state Supreme Court could rule any day now on whether sick workers and students can independently test the building. If the court rules against them, hundreds will be devastated. Demolishing the building won’t prevent lawsuits but could limit evidence.