Biotech campus met with doubt

Planners envision research facility as antidote to Kannapolis' job losses

KANNAPOLIS -- People like to talk big about the North Carolina Research Campus taking shape in Kannapolis.

Planners say the campus, which is recruiting scientists from Triangle universities, will profoundly change what we know about nutrition. They say it could remake the crops and fortunes of Eastern North Carolina. They say it will prove a region's economy can be resurrected with the right idea.

But before that can happen, they must persuade this decidedly blue-collar town -- an area hit hard by textile and manufacturing layoffs -- to embrace biotech. It has been a tough sell so far.

"I don't think of myself as a researcher," said Tiffany Morrow, who was among 1,200 workers laid off in March from Freightliner. "If that campus is going to offer jobs, I need to see some hard-core proof. I need to see people working there."

About a year into the construction of the 350-acre campus, buildings are taking shape and university labs will begin opening in the spring. Some private businesses, including the software company Red Hat, have also signed on. That means support staff will be needed in less than a year.

But Morrow's comments, a familiar refrain around town, make Kannapolis leaders wonder how long it will take before workers are ready to cut their ties with manufacturing.

Jeanie Moore, vice president of continuing education programs for the local community college, said residents still call the research campus offices wanting to know where the new Pillowtex plant will be. The giant textile mill, known by different names over the years, defined Kannapolis for almost a century before it closed in 2003.

"It's like if you travel a block away from the research campus, it doesn't exist in the hearts and minds of the people," Moore said.

A $1.5 billion project, the campus is being developed by billionaire David H. Murdock, the owner of Dole Food Co.

Murdock, 84, preaches the value of good nutrition at every opportunity. He plans to spend more than $1 billion to transform the former mill town into an international magnet for nutrition research. The state has promised almost $30 million a year, mostly to hire research teams. Local governments could spend more than $150 million to improve things such as roads and sewers.

Seven of the state's universities will send research teams. A separate development company owned by Murdock is also recruiting private businesses. The campus will be a small town in its own right with housing, retail shopping, a municipal center and other amenities. Thousands of spinoff jobs are predicted.

The first lab, which should be complete this year, looms over the nearby homes of former mill workers. The scope of the construction is jarringly out of proportion with nearby businesses along Dale Earnhardt Boulevard.

Murdock knows it will take time for people to adjust. This is a town where pay is by the hour and billionaires never swoop in to create good jobs.

"When you go from being a lint head in a cotton mill to a community college student where you study things you never dreamed of, it gets confusing for people," he said at a spring ceremony marking construction progress. "But it will sink in."

Given the gap between Murdock's vision and today's realities, that could take some time.

More than 4,800 people lost their jobs when Pillowtex closed. But in the first quarter of 2006, the most recent period from which state data is available, only 60 percent reported wages. About half of them earned less than $5,000 during that time.

The March layoffs at Freightliner, about 30 minutes away, has tightened the market. That company is expected to cut at least 1,500 more jobs in July.