Troy University’s Malone Hall has always been a “scrappy” building. Tori Lee Averett said it’s never been a particularly comfortable place to work.

“There are water stains. It was just sort of well known that there are drippy places or there are places where the building needs a little love,” said Averett, who’s been at Troy for about 12 years and serves as the chair for the theater and dance department. “It’s just part of the landscape.”

The building houses the school’s art and theater programs. After student journalists at the Tropolitan shared images of water damage, rat feces, mold and blooming fungus on floors and ceilings, the campus accelerated plans to deal with maintenance at Malone Hall and other aging buildings.

Tests of the mold indicated no danger to students or staff, said Jim Bookout, senior vice chancellor for financial affairs.

“The company said that they didn’t see any reason we couldn’t hold classes in that facility,” Bookout said. However, he said, “it’s an ugly, old building that needs repairs.”

Now, the roof and the HVAC will be replaced. Bookout said about 90% of the building’s ceiling tiles need to be replaced, 75% of the walls need to be repainted and most of the flooring needs to be redone.

“We’re grateful for the action, but we still question why it took so long,” Averett said.

Everyone in Malone Hall will be relocated in January while repairs, costing about $1.6 million, are underway, said Kerry Palmer, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs.

“We’ll have an orderly move as we wrap this semester up and relocate those students into other classes on campus,” Palmer said. “And that will free the building up for our facilities, maintenance personnel, and anyone else that needs to get in there and work. They can do so without students in the building.”

Aging buildings aren’t new to Troy. Bookout said nine buildings at the university have leaks.

On a national level, infrastructure backlogs total $76.1 billion, according to a 2021 report by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

“A significant share of college and university facilities were built to accommodate baby boomer generations in the 1960s and 1970s—the average college building today is more than 50 years old—and these facilities need to be repaired, updated or replaced to best serve students,” the report stated. Aging infrastructure is especially true for schools in the west and the south. Malone Hall is about 50 years old, according to Palmer.

Bookout estimated that the campus is working on about 850 to 900 service tickets with a small staff. However, he promised that oversights like the situation at Malone Hall wouldn’t happen again.

“That’s very embarrassing,” Bookout said. “We own that. If the service person went over to fix a leak and put that same tile back up after the leak was fixed, well, shame on us for allowing that to remain in place, especially visible to students and faculty and staff.”

“We place a tremendous value on arts and humanities here at Troy University, and we are committed to doing everything we can to see that those students have just as optimal a learning environment as any other student that we have at Troy,” Palmer said.

Averett said the situation has rattled students. She said faculty and students are nervous about the temporary move, but they’re grateful for the attention Malone is receiving.

“There’s a loving relationship with Malone Hall with the students,” Averett said. “It’s their home. It may not be pretty all the time, and it may be a little busted in places, but it’s Malone. We love her. She needs help, but we love her.”