The Triangle Business Journal (hard copy only–sorry) has an article out today about how the research campus at Kannapolis is “wobbling” due to anticipated tenants pulling back. Pepsi and Wilmington-based PPD are mentioned.
The article quotes Governing magazine, which suggests that the park was a mistake from the start, since it is located so far away from the Triangle’s universities and educated workforce whose proximity was expected to attract research companies.
The park is starting to look like another painful reminder to the state that economic development attempts, if undertaken at all, should be located where they are most likely to succeed, not where the need for development appears to be the greatest (see TransPark, Global). There are too many unforeseen possibilities to invest in longshots with taxpayers’ money, such as economic downturns at crucial points in time, and too many reasons why some depressed communities don’t have much business activity going on in the first place.