Editor’s note: WRALTechWire Insider Allan Maurer provides an in-depth update about the latest action at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. In Part One of his exclusive report, Maurer takes a look at the continuing addition of new resources on the grounds of a former textile mill. (Part Two focuses on cutting-edge nutrition research at NCRC.)

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. - Coming out of a stalled economy, things are looking up at the 350-acre North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in Kannapolis.

A third 1,500 square-foot ready-to-go wet lab at the NCRC leased so quickly to North Carolina A&T that a fourth is planned to start build-out in May.

One of the smaller partners working on the campus, NC A&T University in Greensboro expanded to 36 people because “They have been extremely successful in attracting external funding” for their work on food safety and other “post-harvest” food issues, says Lynne Scott Safrit, president of the North American Commercial Division of Castle and Cooke. Food safety is an issue of global importance and has gained a lot of headline attention recently, she notes.

Billionaire David Murdock’s Castle and Cooke firm develops the Research Campus on the site of a former Canon Mills plant.
Wet labs get projects off to a fast start

Establishing ready-to-go wet labs at the campus “Has been a very successful venture for us,” says Safrit. “It has been a good business model for us. We’re going to continue building them out a little at a time.” They’re confident they’ll have the fourth lab suite leased before it’s even completed, she adds.

The laboratories are 1,500 square feet with room for one to three companies. Located on the third floor of the David H. Murdock Core Laboratory building, the suites include administrative areas, bench tops, fume hoods, sinks and storage. General Mills and Carolinas Medical Center took the first suite along with JC Medical, LLC, a biotech start-up with the UNC Chapel Hill Research Institute.

The wet labs allow a company or university with funded projects to outfit a lab with their own equipment and get to work much more quickly than if they had to create wet lab space from scratch.

More Projects

Other construction projects are also progressing at NCRC.

Winston-Salem-based DataChambers is awarding construction bids for its 50,000-square-foot data center. Although the start was delayed, it should go swiftly now and completion is expected in 2015, Safrit says. The data center marks the company’s entry into the Charlotte market. The building will be rated to withstand hurricane-force winds and will feature state-of-the-art systems for power, security, HVAC and network connectivity.

The Kannapolis Municipal Center with a city hall that includes 5,500 square feet of meeting and conference space is set to start construction in April. Murdock donated 2.75 acres for the city hall. “

That might not seem like an important piece to advance science, but it is,” Safrit notes. “It has a huge 500-seat auditorium. It’s important for attracting scientific meetings and conferences here. That’s one way to advance partnerships and bring in people from other parts of the country and the world.”

Safrit says more projects are in various stages of discussion. “We’ve seen more activity in all areas in the first quarter of 2014,” she says, from a small firm looking for a space to set-up and commercialize its operations to another proposing a project for a Fortune 500 company.

Editor’s note: Allan Maurer has been a science reporter for national magazines such as OMNI and Science Digest and covered biotechnology for numerous publications for the last 15 years.