Community leaders and life science industry executives attended a special forum yesterday in Kannapolis to preview the $1 billion North Carolina Research Campus.
An estimated 200 people attended the event, which was co-sponsored by the City of Kannapolis, Ernst & Young, SEBIO, Cabarrus Regional Partnership and CED.
The 160-acre campus will feature a 311,000 sq. ft. "Core Laboratory" building that on-site tenants can use for R&D efforts. Numerous partners have already signed on to participate in this massive project, including UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, NC State, LabCorp and others.
Demolition of the old textile mill factories is well underway, and the first buildings of the Research Campus will be complete in November 2007.
During the event yesterday, Ernst & Young's Mike Constantino outlined the future promises and challenges of the life science economy. After Constantino's presentation, a panel discussion with Christy Shaffer, Bob McMahan, Steven Burke and other local community leaders described the importance of regional and statewide initiatives to make "reality exceed vision" in North Carolina's life science economy.
McMahan pointed out that the Kannapolis project will foster healthy "coopetition" between places like the Research Triangle Park and Piedmont Triad. What kind of impact do you think the "Biopolis" project in Kannapolis will have on other life science clusters in North Carolina?