Murdock Unveils Plans for Ambitious North Carolina Biopolis in Mills of Kannapolis

David Murdock, the owner of Dole Food Co., yesterday unveiled his vision for a biotech center in Kannapolis, NC, a town near Charlotte that was once a center for the state's once-powerful-but-now-decimated textile industry.

Murdock, the 80-something billionare who bought Dole and took it private in 2003, has an ambitious $1-billion plan to fund the transformation of a 250-acre site holding a former Cannon Mills plant and an additional 100 acres of land in Kannapolis into a biotechnology center focusing on health and nutrition, according a 2,000-word statement issued yesterday.

Murdock on Monday unveiled his plans to revitalize the old mill town a half hour from Charlotte in a media event dotted with state and local officials as well as townfolk.

Reports of his plans initially surfaced in early August. [See New Biology Economy, Aug. 10]

Like many areas across the nation, including New York [see New Biology Economy Aug. 11], North Carolina is looking at biotechnology as a catalyst for economic development. The state is already one of the nation's hot spots for biotech, with activity centered in the Research Triangle area, which, depending on traffic, is some three hours to the east in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.

Murdock has engaged the 16-school University of North Carolina as a partner in his vision of creating what is called the North Carolina Research Campus – projected to have 1 million square feet of office and laboratory space, and 350,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, 700 residential units, and a private math and science high school for girls.

But whether the Charlotte area can become a biotech center remains to be seen. Charlotte is a town whose skyline is dominated by sleek new downtown towers that speak of its position as a nexus for the country's banks, and the northern node of a suburban sprawl extending to Atlanta to the south.

Murdock's plans, as detailed in the statement, start with a 330,000 square-foot building housing 60,000 square feet of core lab space for DNA sequencing, microarray analysis and mass spectrometry (the typical toolkit of a complete molecular biology lab), as well as a contract biogenic manufacturing facility, and the Dole Research Institute.

The 10,000 square-foot Dole Research Institute will conduct nutrition research and develop new varieties of fruits and vegetables in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University. The latter will open an Institute for Advanced Fruit and Vegetable Science with approximately 50,000 square feet of laboratory and research space and 100,000 square feet of experimental and research-oriented greenhouse facilities.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will establish the UNC Institute for Excellence in Nutrition, which will focus on research examining the relationship between nutrition and the brain, obesity, and cancer.

Additionally, there are discussions being held to create a community college-based training facility, a conference center and a 125-room hotel. Sweeping plans include a medical facility offering care for the employees who work at the center.

Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), Murdock said, plans to place a facility on the campus.

Andrew Conrad, chief scientific officer of LabCorp's National Genetics Institute, is a member of the board of directors for Dole Food and Castle and Cooke Inc., a non-food-related Murdock company that owns most of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Murdock told the Charlotte Observer newspaper that he plans to create a $100 million venture capital fund to encourage companies to locate in the area.

The state legislature has indicated that it will cough up some $60 million in funds to buy specialized equipment for the site and $25 million a year for university support in the area, UNC system president Molly Broad said, according to the Daily Tarheel, the UNC-Chapel Hill student newspaper. The Raleigh News & Observer heard the equipment budget as $16 million. So too did the Charlotte Observer.

So, now, why do I find myself, after examining all of this, hearing, "Ya Got Trouble?" from The Music Man?

For more on Murdock, read this profile in The Salisbury (NC) Post from early in 2000.