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NC State University is officially demolishing Poe Hall, a building that’s caused the school, and its community, both headaches and heartbreaks.
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The school’s board of trustees voted to move forward with the project Wednesday.
North Carolina’s long-awaited state budget provides $185 million for the demolition and eventual reconstruction of the building, which once housed NC State’s education department. Poe Hall is full of harmful chemicals known as PCBs — and a group of former occupants claim their time in the building is the cause of the cancer they later developed. A federal investigation found high levels of both chemicals and certain kinds of cancer, but couldn’t definitively link the two.
The budget was passed by the General Assembly and then signed into law by the governor last week.
The university has yet to share a timeline or detailed information on the demolition, which the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved this spring. The building is currently surrounded by dark fencing, with workers coming in and out of its back doors.
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While the demolition marks an important milestone, litigation against the school from a group of sickened people who once worked or studied in the building remains active. Both that group and the university are in turn suing Monsanto, the company that manufactured PCBs.
The insured value of Poe Hall is just under $50 million, according to Alicia Knight, senior associate vice chancellor of finance and administration at NC State.
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