Nutrition research campus varies its diet of tenants.

• Position: Charlotte

David Murdock's $1.5 billion bet on the food-and-nutrition research campus he's developing in Kannapolis bore its first fruit--three new buildings--in October, three years after plans were first announced. Instead of building it near major research universities, the owner of Dole Food Co. invited universities to come to the former mill town. And they have. At least eight will have faculty on the 350-acre campus. Companies...