In 2022, momentum began building in the life-sciences sector in the Charlotte Region.
Eli Lilly & Co. announced and broke ground on a $1 billion manufacturing campus in Concord. Insite Properties purchased the Kannapolis land holdings of David Murdock’s Castle & Cooke, which includes significant real estate at and around the N.C. Research Campus, to facilitate more investment. And those projects joined the Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s planned uptown Charlotte campus and The Pearl innovation district that will surround it as marquee investments in the Charlotte area’s life-sciences pipeline.
The projects are potential building blocks for a broader life-sciences sector here.
Christopher Lloyd, senior vice president and director for McGuireWoods Consulting, told the Charlotte Business Journal the region is likely best suited to find its niche within the broad life-sciences sector to help create an industry cluster here.
“Charlotte has many assets that are essential to building a health-care and life-sciences cluster,” Lloyd said. “But to try to displace or duplicate some of the hubs that already exist in the country is somewhat of an uphill battle. Instead, I think Charlotte has many assets for which it is known as a finance hub, as a manufacturing hub, as a logistics hub. Is there a way you can take those inherent competitive advantages that the Charlotte region has and use it to become a player?”
“Hopefully what it means is, longer term, we can pitch Charlotte more and more often for something that is pharmaceutical-related or life-sciences-related production,” said Christopher Chung, president and CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
Local leaders say the Lilly investment was a major win for the area in terms of elevating the regional life-sciences sector.
Janet LaBar, president and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, said landing the Lilly project could serve as a “defining moment” for the region for years to come. She touted the area’s workforce, pipeline and transportation elements, which Lilly referenced as positives in choosing Concord, as drivers that could attract more investment.
Cabarrus County has been at work since the January announcement to capitalize on the momentum. Lilly has said it plans to begin production in Concord in 2024.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in those types of projects and those types of inquiries and really have in the last year since we announced the Lilly project,” said Page Castrodale, executive director of Cabarrus Economic Development. “I don’t see that changing any time soon, just as they get more established. I think there is opportunity for other industry leaders to locate here, but I also think there is opportunity for suppliers to locate in the region. So, we’re excited about that. Just like with anything, if there is an industry cluster, it makes it that much more attractive, it makes it that much easier to recruit and train the workforce, so that is sort of our goal to keep building that out.”
Jay Blanton, founder and managing principal of Insite Properties, said the Lilly project and The Pearl in uptown Charlotte “made us even more positive about the acquisition” of the N.C. Research Campus land.
The research campus opened in 2008 as a hub of nutrition and human performance-related work, but development stalled there under Castle & Cooke’s ownership.
“Whatever particular sectors of the life-science category companies would be in, I think that the campus is appropriate for a wide range of those kind of uses or focuses,” Blanton said. “There’s land to develop and build new buildings and, obviously, there is a lot of available space in the core lab building itself, which we still have under contract and intend to purchase (in 2023). There are a lot of opportunities in existing space and future space that could be built in small or larger parcels of land.”
Lilly’s project, the medical school and the research campus are all ingredients in creating a life sciences cluster in the Charlotte region, Lloyd said. Focusing on specific niches within a broad sector could allow serious momentum to build, he added.
There is potential for the industry to grow quickly.
“I think we are going to see an uptick in that in the next year or two because we have such a history of manufacturing and doing that well here,” LaBar said.
This story is part of CBJ’s special report, “What’s the big idea?” Reporters talked with leading players across several key industries in the Charlotte region about significant challenges they face — and potential solutions.
