North Carolina Research Campus

$1.5 Billion Biotech Development Under Construction Near Charlotte

By Bea Quirk

The North Carolina Research Campus, the $1.5 billion vision of billionaire and Dole Food owner David Murdock, is steaming ahead in Kannapolis, N.C., near Charlotte.

Murdock's vision is a grand one. By 2011, he expects a world-class biotech center featuring a state-of-the-art laboratory facility; 1 million sq ft of office space; 350,000 sq ft of retail and commercial space; 700 residential units; a 1,000-seat auditorium; a private girls' science high school; and a 120-room hotel and wellness center. Greenspace and walking trails will connect to the city's park system.

The project incorporates the state's well-known education institutions. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, North Carolina State University and Duke University will all have research centers on the campus, and the state's community college system will also have a facility. In addition, a $100 million venture fund has been set up to attract start-up and young biotech firms to the campus, which ultimately is expected to create 5,000 biotech jobs and more than 30,000 ancillary ones.

Turner Construction Co. is well under way with several components of the emerging biotech campus.

The largest is the Core Laboratory Building, which Turner started last February and McGraw-Hill Construction estimates at between $150 million and $175 million in construction costs. According to McGraw-Hill, the five-story project will measure approximately 311,000 sq ft and also feature a roughly 70-space underground parking deck.

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Turner is also overseeing work on three other buildings, according to McGraw-Hill, all of which are estimated at between $10 million and $15 million in construction costs. These include: the four-story, 126,342-sq-ft University of North Carolina Center for Excellence in Nutrition, which started in July; the four-story, 101,554-sq-ft Dole Nutrition Institute office building, which kicked off in January; and a four-story, 126,342-sq-ft facility for the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, which was slated to get started in February.

The contractor also has a separate $2 million contract for the development's central energy plant. The 23,500-sq-ft building commenced construction last June.

History Leads to Future

The project is symbolic of the state's transformation from its reliance on textile firms to a greater emphasis on technology and health care.

For decades, Cannon Mills - later renamed Pillowtex - was the lifeblood of Kannapolis, located about 20 mi north of Charlotte, the state's largest city. In fact, the town was mill owned and run until 1984, when it officially became a chartered city.

Now the city's future is being built on the remains of the former 350-acre mill site located in downtown.

"The most exciting part of this project is to be able to create sustainable, better-paying jobs for the people of Kannapolis and the region, and the creation of this scientific community centered on biotechnology (that) will allow a transformation of this economy from a manufacturing-based one to one centered on scientific knowledge and research," Murdock says in a statement on the development's Web site.

A recent economic impact study conducted for Kannapolis predicts the campus could create up to 37,000 jobs in five years. "Our challenge will be to maximize this potential and make sure those who are already here can gain the education and training they need to compete for jobs in the biotechnology sector," says City Manager Mike Legg. "It is the city's priority to continue supporting the campus development and making the changes we need to ensure the campus' success."

But before the campus could begin to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old textile plant, Castle & Cooke, Murdock's development firm, had to know what was in those ashes and what was lying underneath. And that proved to be no small task.

"It's been like working on an archaeological dig," says Ray Waugh, a partner with Charlotte-based Land Design, the civil engineer. "You start digging and think you've hit bedrock, when instead it's concrete slabs from an old building from the '40s. It was like a game trying to figure out what was under there."

The firm is also handling land planning and landscape architecture.

Other surprises included finding underground storage tanks and dumpsites that were up to 35 ft deep. Waugh says weekly meetings were held with the former plant manager and longtime employees to help figure out what was being found as they dug and graded.

The meetings also included representatives from Castle & Cooke; Land Design; Greensboro, N.C.-based D.H. Griffin Cos., which handled the demolition and infrastructure; and the Carolinas regional office of Turner Construction Co., the general contractor for the first five buildings going up, as well as staff from the city and county governments.

Griffin had nearly 6 million sq ft of the old plant to demolish, including the two landmark smokestacks, and the grading was going on as structures were being demolished. The demolition took about a year and was nearly completed by the end of 2006.

Some remediation was required because of contamination issues in some areas, and some dirt was removed to the former wastewater treatment plant site nearby that will become growing fields for NC State's agricultural research.

And the site's infrastructure is closely tied to the city's systems, further complicating matters. "This was a mill village, and the heart of the utilities came from the plant," Waugh says. "We found main trunks for water lines and had to work around them to keep the town going."

The water providing fire protection for downtown Kannapolis came from a pond located onsite because the city system's pressure was insufficient. But the pond was drained to create the site for the five-level, 311,000-sq-ft David H. Murdock Core Lab Building.

While the city redesigns its downtown waterlines, a temporary booster pump has been installed to ensure adequate fire protection. "Water was just the initial issue," Waugh says. "We've got sewer lines and storm drainage to deal with down the road."

Waugh says Murdock, who is 83, is insisting that the project stay on track for its planned completion in 2011. While work on the academic and research facilities continues, construction on the retail component will begin by year's end.

Work is going forward even though there has been some uncertainty about the amount the city and county will contribute to the campus through tax-increment financing. Elected officials announced a figure of $76 million in November, but at the first of the year, Murdock asked for $160 million. Negotiations were under way in January.

"This (time frame) obviously puts a lot of pressure on everybody," says Tom Sanctis, vice president of commercial construction for Castle & Cooke. "I tell everyone to try to be smart and methodical and not be reactive, and along the way, we'll build confidence in each other."

To stay on track, it became apparent early on that the master plan had to be reoriented so the core lab building could get started on time to meet the overall schedule. The facility's location was moved to a cleared spot; only about 25% of the total plant was actually demolished when ground was broken on the new building in February 2006.

Construction on the lab building is set for completion in November, but it will take several more months to install all the equipment.

The lab buildings-like all the campus structures-will feature a classic Regency architectural style that uses brick extensively. "If you go with the latest trends, the buildings become dated within 10 years," says David Creech, a partner with Narmour Wright Creech Architecture in Charlotte and the principal in charge. "We have combined timeless architecture with sophisticated, state-of-the-art equipment inside."

Creech says architects were still designing the steel-and-concrete lab building when its construction began last February. "We made the floor heights higher than usual to provide maximum flexibility," he adds.

Building a laboratory with such sophisticated equipment-including the world's largest and most powerful nuclear magnetic resonance machine-requires the skills of highly specialized firms to deal with the lab's stringent requirements for protection against vibrations, air circulation, back-up power and lighting . St. Louis-based Health, Education + Research Associates is designing the laboratory space.

A sophisticated lab also requires using special building techniques and following clean building protocols. Jeff Owens, Turner's project operations manager for the campus, says that finding workers and subs with these backgrounds has not been difficult because many of them gained experience from working at the nearby Research Triangle Park in Raleigh.

No food or drink was allowed in the building, the interior frame walls were vacuumed before the drywall went up and ducts were wiped down with alcohol and water before being sealed. The lab itself has no square corners to make cleaning easier.

Once the clean room was certified, all tools had to be sterilized and workers had to gown up before entering. The first-floor vivarium-where small rodents will be housed for research projects-will feature a special airflow system to dissipate odors and a drainage system to handle wastewater from cage washings.

Useful Sources:

North Carolina Research Campus
www.ncresearchcampus.net

Turner Construction Co. - North Carolina Research Campus
http://www.turnerconstruction.com/carolinas/content.asp?d=5339&p=5338