Color me bleh over David Murdock’s $1 billion plan for the land of Pillowtex. First of all, the proposed North Carolina Research Campus needs — ta da — tax increment financing from local government plus about $25 to $30 million a year in support from the UNC system. And that is just to get things rolling. The true heavy lifting of the project, actually getting key biotech firms to put down roots in Rowan and Cabarrus County, is yet to come. But suffice it to say that without that vital private sector committment from top-flight firms, not just fly-by nighters looking for a handout, the Research Campus cannot work.
Murdock seems to be operating solely on the Field of Dreams if-you-build-it-they-will-come paradigm, which would be fine were it just his $100 million on the table. The problem is it is not. Moreover, biotech firms will want powerful economic incentives to even consider moving parts of their operations far from traditional research centers. It is no accident that so many biotech entities have clustered in suburban Maryland, for example, close by the National Institutes of Health. They will not pick up and move to a North Carolina mill town at the drop of a hat — even several very expensive hats.
Two final notes of caution. First, will the new head of the UNC system have the same enthusiasm for the project as Molly Broad evidently does? And second, when Murdock says things like “the largest collection of scientists in one area in the nation” he is implying that scale alone will assure the project’s success. That is not the case.
Update: In case anyone has forgotten the mess that Kinston’s TransPark has been for, oh, what 12 or 13 years now, more than enough reminders here.
