After lunch at the dam, we rode drowsily along to get to Kannapolis, where a new research campus modeled on the RTP is being built. Along the way, Jim Laloudis gave us a talk about the economic and desegregation history of the area, as he had done all throughout the tour. He flew out after dinner that night, which was a loss, but we gained Ferrell Guillory to also give us historical background for some of the rest of the tour.
Kannapolis was a company town for Pillowtex, a very large textile manufacturer that went out of business in 2003. The town began to sink fast, and is at 30% unemployment. David H. Murdock of Dole Foods had an affection for the town as he had once owned Pillowtex in a previous incarnation, so he bought it. He decided to work with the state universities to create a center for research like RTP, focusing on biotechnology, nutrition, and health research. He moved two of his factories to the state and took funding for the universities to use in this project instead of the usual incentive tax breaks for moving the factories – generous. The new UNC Nutrition Research Institute, part of the School of Public Health, will focus on nutrition and food and plant science. Carolina, Duke, NC State, UNC A&T, UNC Charlotte, and others will all have faculty and projects based there, working in many cases in the same labs, as well as assorted private companies focusing on biomedical endeavors.
We were each given a hard hat and a florescent vest to wear – the center is still under construction. I had looked up a few pictures, and there were some in our Tour Book – but nothing could prepare me to see this building. It looked like many other buildings I have seen – vaguely Georgian, with red brick and tall white columns – but is incredibly massive. It’s five stories, but it felt more like ten.
The entry way to the Core Lab – the only one safe enough to visit yet, even with hard hats – is a huge rotunda, going up all five stories. It reminded me very much of the Texas State Capital building, except that it was far more light and better lit, with yellow paint and white marble. The Capital building always reminded me of a cave, although that might be because I always entered it directly from sunlight while wearing sunglasses.
Anyway, Murdock is building for posterity – there is 2-inch thick carved white Italian marble all through the entry way, and will be through much of the first floor. There is a beautiful inlaid marble design on the rotunda floor. Each building is meant to have the absolute best lab equipment, some of which is being designed and built specifically for the new Campus. They are attempting to gain Leed Certification, at least silver, although they think they might be able to get gold for some buildings. That’s very impressive when you recall that they had to import that Italian marble, and that will certainly count against them when the distance traveled is counted.
Two things about the design struck most of us as really valuable, both related to transport – there is a large parking structure built (something to be appreciated by anyone who tries to park on our own campus, especially as a few people just got evicted from their usual parking grounds due to construction), and there will be bike and walking paths from several nearby residential areas. They will install showers and locker rooms in the lab buildings so that people can bike to work and then rinse off – very cool! I myself prefer to walk the distance to a bus stop far off from my house, but won’t on my way to work or when it’s hot because of the need to be clean for work.
The building that is being called the UNC building – its official name is something else, but nobody is calling it that at this point – will be focused on nutrition research and include NC State and other researchers as well. It will be open in about a month, which is only a month behind schedule. The project leader seemed distressed by that, but I thought that was impressive – that seems a small delay for such a big project, especially as so much of it seems to be original to this building. It will have 18 tenured faculty from Carolina, who are currently being recruited. These faculty will be tenure track but not teach, which will be new for Carolina. They will be supervising grad students and postdocs, however.
After visiting the site, we went to a bank in town to listen to Dr Steven Zeisel, the Institute Director, talk about the history of the project. We discovered (while searching for the restroom, which we do a lot of on the bus tour) that the old vault was still there, and the door was open. Very cool – the mechanisms of the vault lock were visible, and some people went into it. It had children’s book mural on the walls for some reason.
Interesting visit – this should be an exciting addition if everything goes well. I am curious how the businesses and rival schools will function together. Everyone is also anxious to see how this will affect the town – there are plans for a community college annex on the Research Campus to train interested residents to function at a variety of research and lab support jobs, and this will certainly bring new money into the community, but it will surely change many things. Hopefully, everybody will benefit as much as there is potential to do so.
