Carolina North Innovation Center Project canceled

Carolina North’s flagship is likely never going to be built.

Jack Evans, the executive director of Carolina North, said Wednesday that the University didn’t reach an agreement with the developers of the Innovation Center.

“It’s a casualty of the economy,” Evans said Wednesday at a public information meeting with town and University officials. “There are no discussions on the table now that would bring that project into being.”

Carolina North is a 250-acre mixed-use satellite campus set to be two miles north of UNC off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The Innovation Center was designed to bring global leaders in research, entrepreneurship and academics to the state.

It was slated to house high-growth start-up companies with links to UNC research, attracting the world’s best and brightest.

The center was supposed to be funded, built and operated by a private developer — Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. — in partnership with UNC.

UNC would have leased the property to the company and occupied about one-third of the building as a renter.

“We weren’t able to reach an agreement with the developer, and it would take something I don’t see now to get that going again,” Evans said.

He said a research building is a more likely candidate for the site’s first facility.

“The Innovation Center is unlikely to happen, and the law school is dependent on the state legislature for nearly all of its construction costs,” Evans said.

“By default, if we were to develop a way to fund the research building, that might be the first one on campus.”

Construction of the UNC School of Law — originally scheduled to be the second building on the campus — was planned to finish by 2012.

But because the new building will be funded almost entirely by state funds, the project has had to wait.

Evans said the University is currently focusing on constructing a new facility at Raleigh-Durham International Airport to serve the Medical Air Operations, which is still running out of Horace-Williams Airport located on top of Carolina North’s 133 acre development area.

The operation transports health science students and faculty, medical residents and University officials around the state for educational activities.

Evans said he expects the project to be completed by June 2011.

Town Manger Roger Stancil said he will incorporate comments and questions raised at Wednesday’s meeting into his own report to the town council, which will be delivered on Oct. 11.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.