A mushroom growing out of a dorm room wall on the fourth floor of Lawrence Tower. Credit: Courtesy of Kyra Avarello
It has been nine months since the first reports of mushrooms and mold growing in Lawrence Tower, but Ohio State’s plan for the residence hall remains unclear.
“Right now, there’s nobody living in it, and there’s some litigation going on, so we’ve got to get through that first, and then there’ll be some public determination about what we’re going to do with that tower,” University President Walter “Ted” Carter said in an interview with The Lantern.
Dave Isaacs, university spokesperson, confirmed that information in an email.
Initially, only 40 students were temporarily moved out of 19 rooms, with the university confirming that a water leak caused the mold threat in the dorm rooms, per prior Lantern reporting. The Lantern was made aware of these students relocating on Nov. 12, 2024 through an email with Isaacs.
“A water leak occurred in a utility chase, the vertical space that allows pipes and wires to run from one floor to another, on the 11th floor of Lawrence Tower,” Isaacs said in a Nov. 12 email. “This leak caused water damage to the drywall and is limited to the rooms that are adjacent to that utility chase. The leak was reported via Service2Facilities on October 28, and the same morning Facilities team members were on site assessing the damage.”
However, things quickly changed.
All students living in Lawrence were notified that they would be moved to “alternative accommodations” by the beginning of the spring semester to “minimize further disruptions to their student experience and facilitate ongoing renovations,” according to an email from Isaacs on Nov. 21, 2024.
All students were moved out of the dorm before this past spring semester began, with the latest date being Jan. 4, 2025 if a student chose to stay in Lawrence over break, according to the frequently asked questions on the Lawrence Tower website.
Students living in Lawrence were given options of where they could relocate for the spring semester. In the Nov. 21 email, Isaacs said that all students would “have the option to move to a new on-campus or master-leased near-campus location, or to elect to cancel their housing contract to move home, live with a relative or identify an alternative housing option.”
The university also began conducting tests through a university-contracted vendor through Ohio State’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety while working with Columbus Public Health, per prior Lantern reporting. According to Isaacs, the early review of these tests indicated that “most rooms” were in the “expected range when compared to the immediate outdoor environment.”
The news that all students would be relocated followed an independent mold report from PriorityLab. A group of parents organized through a Facebook group to sponsor the lab to test their students’ rooms for mold swatches.
Out of 28 rooms that were tested, 27 showed a significant amount of mold growth, specifically detailing “indoor problem fungi,” per prior Lantern reporting. Isaacs said that the removal of students from Lawrence was not related to the PriorityLab test results.
One of the rooms in the report had 2,000,000 spores found in their dorm room, with a control amount of spores set at 9,900.
On Nov. 26, 2024, residents living in Lawrence received a university housing email that confirmed that the university would “not be utilizing [Lawrence Tower] for housing in the spring semester” and that the university was “[anticipating] ongoing renovations.”
The university gave all Lawrence residents a $450 credit to their university account, as well as $75 added to their BuckID balance, according to the Nov. 26 email. To some students, they felt disappointed that this was the university’s response.
On Jan. 13, Just Well Law, which operates out of Texas and specializes in toxic exposure cases, and Bressman Law, an Ohio-based personal injury firm, filed a joint lawsuit against Ohio State acting on the behalf of students who experienced mold exposure while living in Lawrence.
Thirty-two plaintiffs are named in the court complaint and the case is filed under Jack Barga, et al. v. The Ohio State University in the Ohio Court of Claims, as well as a lawsuit filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas for the Ohio Consumer Sales Practice Act (CSPA) claims, per prior Lantern reporting.
The lawsuit requests economic damages for each plaintiff to start at $1,000 per person with a cap of $5,000 per person, as well as total “compensatory damages in an amount more than $25,000,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that Ohio State was aware of the mold problem after it acquired the previously Holiday Inn property and crammed two years of work into six months. The lawsuit also claims that the renovations may have only taken two months.
Ohio State submitted a motion to dismiss the CSPA claim and as of Aug. 28, the judge still has not issued a decision on the university’s motion.
