GOSHEN — As soon as people step into the Mega Plaza building on Goshen’s northwest side, they’re hit with the feel of the humidity and the smell of something growing.

When Bill Wallis walked in Monday, he said the building is “like an incubator.”

The building’s growing mold in various spots throughout the roughly 60,000-square-foot building.

“You can see where someone painted over it, but it’s just coming back through,” said Dennis Carter, shining a light on drywall inside the building.

Carter, of TecServ Environmental, toured the building Monday with Wallis of ABCO Inc. They were there at the invitation of Valerie Smith of Elijah’s Fire International Church. The church hopes to buy the building at auction next month.

After looking through a few different sections of the building, Wallis told Smith, “I think you’ve got to gut it.”

Over the years, the former retail store building has been divided into four large sections. One section houses a pair of indoor soccer fields, a ministry run by another church.

Donnie Greathouse, pastor of New Life in Christ Ministries, hopes the soccer fields will stay in place and would like help so his church can buy the property and make repairs.

That has to start with roof repairs, Carter said. “You’ve got to control the water. If you don’t control the water, you don’t control anything.”

Mold only needs two things to grow: Moisture and organic material, like wood, drywall, the latex in paint, or wallpaper paste.

That means fixing a variety of leaks in the roof will have to be the top priority for the new owner, the two professionals said.

Smith said as she looked at the building, she became concerned about the exposure families have when they come to play soccer. “The concern has just been the mold levels you can smell and feel,” she said. She’s figuring that fixing up the foreclosed building will cost several times the purchase price at the auction April 11.

Carter said the various varieties of mold in the building probably won’t have long-term health impacts on people, as long as they aren’t exposed to it for a long time. “It’s more a discomfort kind of thing, but you don’t want to be in it long term,” he said. “At high enough levels anyone can have an allergic reaction.”

The building started as a Fisher’s Big Wheel Department Store in the 1980s and then became a Big Lots in the 1990s. Over the last decade it’s housed the soccer fields and a restaurant for a while, and formerly served as a night club.

The former owner went bankrupt and left the area last year, according to court documents.