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.