Down on Main Street: Kannapolis city leaders plan to lift their quaint downtown by buying up property.

• Author: Singe, Kerry
• Position: OUR TOWNS

In one of the nation's most iconic company towns, Kannapolis' center city is looking for a fresh start. Leaders expect to close this summer on a $6.75 million purchase of 49 acres of downtown property now owned by California billionaire David Murdock. Nearly half of its historic buildings are vacant, and many need repairs. Others face demolition. The city expects to spend $14 million for infrastructure improvements, which will be financed by the sale of bonds. The goal is to repair or demolish and redevelop the properties and move 80-90% of them out of government control within 10 years. It is a big transition for a town dominated for a century by two groups: the family-controlled Cannon Mills Co. from the 1890s until 1982, and Murdock, who acquired the towel-maker and 660 acres that year. Best known as the owner of fresh-fruit giant Dole Food Company Inc., Murdock tired of the textile industry, selling Cannon to Eden-based Fieldcrest Mills Inc. in 1986. The combined Fieldcrest Cannon Inc. was acquired by Dallas-based Pillowtex Corp. in 1997 and folded in 2003. More than 4,300 people lost their jobs in the biggest permanent layoff in North Carolina history. But Murdock saw potential in Cabarrus County real estate and pledged to revitalize the area. In 2005, he announced the North Carolina Research Campus, a biotechnology research institute that would partner with the state's major universities and private companies to make Kannapolis a magnet for scientists. While the project has attracted several hundred million dollars of investment, mostly by Murdock and his affiliated companies, it has done little for the quaint downtown. "The combination of losing the mill and the economic downturn, combined with [Murdock's] efforts focused on other things, has had a negative...