Billionaire to unveil plan for biotech center at old textile site
California billionaire David Murdock will come to town Monday to unveil plans for a biotechnology complex on the former site of Pillowtex Corp. Plant 1, which dominated downtown Kannapolis for decades as the employer of thousands. Then came the slowdown of the state’s textile industry. And in July 2003, the plant was shuttered as the company shut down and shed 4,800 jobs.
“The worst part was having to live in a state of indecision and uncertainty,” said Lynn Scott Safrit, president of Murdock’s Atlantic American Properties Inc. “We hope that ends Monday on both accounts.”
Demolition of the century-old factory — roughly the size of the Pentagon at 5.8 million square feet — began last month and is expected to go on for months more.
Murdock, owner of Dole Food Co., has proposed building a biotechnology research center in its place with the involvement of four North Carolina universities, according to the University of North Carolina.
The project will include “a cluster of world-class research centers focused on health and nutrition, as well as related initiatives to foster economic growth and transformation in the state,” according to a statement from Murdock’s Atlantic American Properties Inc.
There have been few other details released about the project, including how many people may eventually work there. Murdock will answer many questions about his plan for the 264-acre site next week, Safrit said.
And residents of Kannapolis will be eager to hear his ambitious plan to help rebuild its lagging economy, even though the Cabarrus County unemployment rate has dropped to about half of the 10.3 percent jobless rate just after the Pillowtex layoffs.
“To have a billionaire interested in your city is a wonderful thing,” City Manager Mike Legg said Friday. “This is a complete turnaround that doesn’t happen, it just does not occur. It’s the kind of thing that will create a wide range of jobs.”
Along with hundreds of former Pillowtex workers, Legg will join Murdock, University of North Carolina President Molly Broad and U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, R-N.C., at Monday’s announcement. Hayes is the grandson of Charles Cannon, the man who ran for decades ran the textile company that became Pillowtex.
The city of Kannapolis mailed 20,000 invitations — one to virtually every household in town — to Monday’s announcement on Main Street.
“To me that means they are saying thank you for enduring the last two years,” he said. “It’s a celebration as much as it’s an announcement and they wanted to make sure they were involved.”
John Cox, chief executive officer of the Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce, predicted Friday that Murdock’s plan will create thousands of jobs over the next five years with a project that epitomizes “the transition of North Carolina’s economy from textiles and tobacco to tourism and technology.”
“I would estimate we will be able to create more jobs in our economic region than we lost in 2003,” he said.
Murdock was motivated by his existing investment in a collection of retail shops in Kannapolis, said Cox, and the new project is a way to protect that investment.
“But he has gone way past that with these new opportunities,” he said. “It’s past the old adage of a stone being thrown in the pond. This is like throwing a boulder in the ocean.”