Soon after the bond projects were announced, Ray Fornes, Associate Dean for Research in PAMS, approached Mathematics Department Head Ernest Burniston about the use of the bond funds for the renovation of Harrelson. They started listing the major problems in the basic design of Harrelson that needed to be corrected. The list was quite long. Burniston and Fornes agreed that the possibility of using the renovation appropriation toward the construction of a new building should be explored. Fornes discussed this with PAMS Dean Dan Solomon, who endorsed the idea, and approached university architect Mike Harwood about the possible redirection of the bond funds.

Burniston asked Carl Meyer and Michael Shearer to make a detailed study of the arguments for a new building. In the fall of 2001, Meyer and Shearer produced a report: "The Case for a Mathematical Sciences Building," that states in part:

"Harrelson Hall suffers from major architectural flaws that include: classrooms serving thousands of students each day being immediately adjacent to faculty offices; a poorly designed hallway system [with] intractable problems [of] noise and congestion; unresolved difficulties with heating and air conditioning; external stairways that are neither heated in the winter nor cooled in the summer; no public elevators; no public restrooms in the main part of the building; ad hoc telecommunications wiring; inadequate electrical wiring; an almost total lack of meeting and conference rooms; and no commons areas."

The Meyer-Shearer report was presented to the NC State Facilities Planning Committee. Facilities Planning did an independent evaluation, which was much more extensive than the evaluation prior to the bond program. The Committee concluded that the funds required for a renovation project were much greater than the bond funds allotted. Further, even with a renovation, the building would not have the features of a modern mathematics building.

Two other initiatives were begun. First, PAMS Executive Director of Development Anita Stallings and Dean Solomon went after a major corporate gift that could be used to supplement the bond funds. Second, Dean Solomon pressed the administration to identify the steps that would be required to obtain approval for a new building if the College was successful in securing the necessary funds.

The first mention of a building including both Mathematics and Statistics appeared in a report of the PAMS Space Committee dated Sept. 10, 2002. In discussing Harrelson Hall, it argues:

"Harrelson Hall preferably will be replaced by a new building if sufficient resources can be added to the funds reserved in the current bond project for the renovation of Harrelson Hall. Under this scenario a new Mathematical Sciences Building will be constructed at an alternative site that would be equivalent to the spaces (including office, labs, conference and teaching) assigned to the Mathematics and Statistics Departments."

When J. P. Fouque became interim Mathematics Department Head in 2003, he read the Meyer-Shearer report arguing for a new building and decided to push the project along. He set up a new committee consisting of Carl Meyer, John Franke, Michael Shearer and Mette Olufsen to update the findings of Meyer and Shearer. In May 2003 the committee issued a new report: "A New Building for Mathematical Sciences." Associate Dean Fornes attached a preamble stating in part:

"The inadequacy of the building [Harrelson Hall] is often noted by the many visitors to the department. To paraphrase a finalist in the Department Head Search: 'Harrelson Hall is the worst mathematics department building in a major US university, and perhaps the second worst in the world.'

"The university has recognized the need to improve Harrelson Hall by making the facility a priority for a major renovation project in the bond program. The Department and the College are fully convinced that the replacement of Harrelson with an appropriately designed new building for the Department of Mathematics would be a much better plan"

In the spring of 2003, Fouque, together with Meyer, Franke, Shearer and Olufsen, went directly to Chancellor Mary Anne Fox to present their arguments for a new building. The chancellor was very supportive of the project. However, she pointed out that it would be necessary to get approval from the Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors and the State Legislature before the renovation money could be used for a new building. In August of 2003, Lisa Johnson, associate university architect, submitted a report recommending that Harrelson Hall be replaced rather than renovated. The report concluded:

"As this study has indicated, the renovation of Harrelson Hall will cause a loss of usable space and classroom seating capacity, and still not achieve the goals of correcting accessibility deficiencies, and improving classroom capacity and quality standards. NC State University recommends removal and replacement of Harrelson Hall with a new, 100% code-compliant general classroom building that meets the current instructional needs of NC State's faculty, and students and is designed to be flexible to better meet the needs of the classroom of the future. A new classroom building, with an equivalent amount of assignable square footage as post-renovated Harrelson, can be built for an approximately equivalent cost as that of renovating Harrelson Hall. Since a new facility will remedy many of the problems that the renovation cannot and this option will have a longer life, it is recommended that this approach be pursued rather that continuing efforts to renovate Harrelson."

By the fall of 2003, the University Administration, PAMS and the Mathematics Department were all of one mind that Harrelson hall should be replaced and not renovated. In the spring of 2004 the university presented the proposal to the Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors and the State Legislature and obtained permission to use the Harrelson Hall renovation funds for a new "General Classroom Building" to house the Mathematics Department and some parts of CHASS.

In June of 2004, Chancellor Fox appointed an "Ad-Hoc Building Committee for the Classroom and Office Building to replace Harrelson Hall" to act as a Users Group in the development of the design of the new building. Dean Solomon was chairman of the committee, which included members of the administration, mathematics department and CHASS. Planning for this General Classroom Building continued through the spring and summer of 2004.

In the fall of 2004 an important new development occurred. Anita Stallings and Dean Solomon were successful in their efforts to obtain a commitment for a substantial gift from corporate partner SAS that could be used to leverage the bond funds. The latter was contingent upon the university committing to a much larger building that would be the home for both the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Statistics. Moreover, the potential matching gift was not to be announced until assurance was provided that a high-quality building housing both departments would be constructed.

With state and private funding in place and continued support from the university administration, led by Provost James Oblinger (later named Chancellor), approval was obtained in the fall of 2004 to use the Harrelson Hall renovation funds for a new classroom building for the Mathematics and Statistics Departments. The Users Group was expanded to include members of the Statistics Department. Planning for the new building continued from the fall of 2004 through 2005 and 2006.

On October 13, 2006, during the PAMS Alumni and Friends Weekend, the groundbreaking for the new building took place together with the announcement of the SAS contribution. SAS President Jim Goodnight and Executive Vice President John Sall were instrumental in providing the gift and participated in the ceremony. Both attended NC State and remain staunch supporters of PAMS and the university, with Goodnight having served on the faculty of the Department of Statistics and Sall having served on the College's foundation board and currently serving on the university's Board of Trustees. The new building initially was designated as the Mathematics and Statistics Building. However, the naming rights are reserved by SAS.

The Mathematics and Statistics Building is located on the site of the old Riddick Stadium and parking lot and will be completed in the spring of 2009. The Millennium 3 Design Group designed the building. The architectural firm Pearce, Brinkley, Cease & Lee consulted on the project. The general contractor was Clancy & Theys.

The five story Mathematics and Statistics Building contains almost 120,000 square feet. There are 10 classrooms and a 250-seat lecture hall. The mathematics department has 103 offices for faculty and staff and 17 offices for graduate students whle the statistics department has 47 for faculty and staff and 29 for graduate students. Each department has two small meeting rooms, a conference room, a seminar room, a computer lab, a graduate lounge, a staff lounge, a mailroom and a copy room. In addition the math department has a tutorial center and the statistics department has two research labs. The departments share a faculty lounge and a library. There is a shop on the ground floor for university wide use.

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