On February 23rd, 2006, groundbreaking began on the future site of the first building of the North Carolina Research Campus. This building is the center of the campus and is named the David H. Murdock Core Laboratory, after the Research Campus’ founder. At the time when the construction began, the infamous man-made lake that was situated directly in front of the office buildings of Cannon Mills, was drained and filled in to make room for the 311,000-sqaure foot core lab building (“History of Kannapolis,”)After the lake was filled in, work began on the empty Pillowtex buildings. On March 24th, 2006, the company D.H. Griffin Inc. imploded the buildings. This became the second largest implosion in United States history (“History of Kannapolis,”). Now in 2012, the NCRC has become recognized throughout the world. Kannapolis has become home of “one of the largest redevelopment projects in the US” due to the building of the North Carolina Research Campus on the old site of the mill. The North Carolina Research Campus does research in nutrition, disease prevention, and agriculture while working with universities including Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Appalachian State, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Other organizations that have been brought to Kannapolis are the Cabarrus Health Alliance, General Mills, Sensory Spectrum, CMC-Kannapolis, Ei Solutions, and several other

nutrition, healthcare, and food technology organizations (“History”,).











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Implosion of Cannon Mills