California billionaire backing biotechnology project in N.C.

Officials decided the effort was needed after Cabarrus County commissioners raised questions last week about how the city and the developer of the campus, Castle & Cooke, plan to pay for improvements at the site, including water and sewer service, roads, parks and parking decks. Those improvements are expected to cost a total of $347 million. The city and county's potential share will likely range in cost from $40 million up to $80 million, based on the results of a feasibility study currently under way, Kannapolis marketing director Karen Whichard said Thursday. Some commissioners have expressed concern about issuing self-financing bonds for the work, saying the county could be stuck with huge debt if the project doesn't succeed. In an e-mail to members of the Kannapolis city council, City Manager Mike Legg said a refusal to participate by the county could jeopardize the project. ``We are kidding ourselves if we believe there are no consequences to the county declining to participate,'' Legg wrote. ``Mr. Murdock has every intention of completing this project. However, I strongly believe that the project scope could change significantly if Mr. Murdock gets wind of this latest hurdle.'' Murdock, the owner of Dole Foods, is reportedly investing about $1 billion of his own money in the project. Legg's e-mail to council members urged them to contact county commissioners and lobby them to embrace the project. ``There are way too many complicated public-private partnerships that have been formed at every level of government,'' Legg wrote. ``There does not need to be a breakdown at the local level. That will send a terrible message to the region, the state, even the federal level.'' The project is the largest in North Carolina being developed under the state's tax-increment financing law, which allows governments to issue self-financing bonds to pay for work within a special district. Tax revenues from the project are then used to pay off the debt. In a letter sent Wednesday to other board members and reporters, the chairman of the board of commissioners, Bob Carruth, said he backs the project and the financing method. "Source":[ http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/industries/biotech/15244120.htm]

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