RALEIGH — Repairs to the governor’s executive mansion will soar to $4.1 million under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper after another round of upcoming repairs was recently announced costing over $1.6 million.
The mansion, known also as “The People’s House,” was built in 1891 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion, like other homes in the vicinity of Jones and Blount streets in Raleigh, is an example of Queen Anne style Victorian architecture.
Due to the age of the mansion, its upkeep has been costly over the years. In 1973, the General Assembly created the “Executive Mansion Fine Arts Committee” to manage The Committee repairs and preservation of the building.
According to the N.C. Department of Administration’s (NCDOA) Communications Director Julia Hegele, CT Wilson Construction was awarded the project worth $1,645,464.
“The repair work that began this month at the Executive Residence is part of scheduled maintenance to uphold the structural integrity and keep the facility safe for guests, staff and residents,” Hegele said in an email to North State Journal. “After years of use and weather exposure, the porches are unsafe due to numerous warped and/or rotting boards.
Hegele also noted “it has been at least 22 years since the exterior residence was completely painted,” and “Woodwork must be scraped and repainted as part of repairs making it necessary to wrap the porch in order to capture old led-based paint.”
Per Hegele, NCDOA’s State Construction Office “reviewed designs and is overseeing the work” which she said is scheduled to be completed in mid-September.
North State Journal asked for a list of repairs being completed and their costs but the request was turned down.
“As mentioned previously, we do not share design details nor itemized costs for security purposes,” Hegele wrote in her emailed response.
A records request placed by North State Journal in March 2022 also asked for a list of repairs and their costs, as well as contractor payments going back to the date Cooper first took office in Jan. 2017.
The 2022 request coincided with the annual government and media transparency initiative known as “Sunshine Week.”
Cooper’s NCDOA had refused to fulfill our 2022 records request, with Hegele citing “security concerns” as the reason for the refusal.
“Due to security concerns, we typically do not share publicly repair records and recommendations for the Executive Residence,” wrote Hegele. “Providing specific line items and costs could identify potential deficiencies in the historic building as well as materials used for repairs, information that could be exploited to threaten the safety of the residence, its occupants and visitors.”
North State Journal asked the NCDOA for a copy of the policy dictating repairs be kept a secret, including any memos or emails directing such a change. NCDOA did not respond to that request.
Five months after the Sunshine Week request was placed, the NCDOA finally provided a bottom-line dollar figure of $2,569,459.
Two years earlier, in Dec. 2020, North State Journal uncovered $2,123,955 million in spending on the mansion since Cooper became governor. The 2020 records request took well over two years (820 days) for the NCDOA to finally comply.
As with the 2022 request, the DOA refused to turn over details of the repairs or the contractors involved. NCDOA’s Director of Communications was Nan Sanseverino. Like Hegele, Sanseverino denied North State Journal access to the repair records on the basis of “concerns about security.”
No such “security concerns” provisions cited by Hegele and Sanseverino were applied under the McCrory administration during 2013 when repairs to the mansion were widely reported on by media outlets in the state. At that time, multiple media outlets were able to obtain a detailed list of the contractors involved and of the repairs, including $230,000 for a bathroom fix and mold removal – a mere fraction of the spending under Cooper.
