A NEW PLAN FOR AN OLD PLACE

With support from the UNC School of Government and its Development Finance Initiative (DFI), local leaders are executing plans to breathe new life into Kannapolis, North Carolina.

By Mary Lide Parker

When Ryan Dayvault graduated from A. L. Brown High School in Kannapolis in 2004, he and his classmates were met with a bleak reality: Cannon Mills Company, the driving force of their hometown’s economy for the better part of a century, was gone.

“It closed down the summer before we started our senior year, so we were the first ones to graduate without the mill,” Dayvault said.

Once the largest textile factory in the world, Cannon Mills provided thousands of jobs to people in this southwest corner of the state. The closing of the mill produced the biggest permanent layoff in North Carolina history—over 4,000 people lost their jobs, including Dayvault’s mother.

“Everybody I went to school with never experienced our downtown as a vibrant, happening place,” Dayvault said. “It just didn’t exist.”

Despite the despair that accompanied the mill closing, Dayvault held onto hope that Kannapolis could become a bustling town again.

Sixteen years later, Dayvault and many others are working hard to make that hope a reality.

A UNIQUE HISTORY

A suburb of Charlotte with a population of about 40,000 people, Kannapolis and the story of its evolution can only be described as unique. In just over a century, it has evolved from quiet farmland to a booming textile mill to a university research campus.

“This was our farmland before the Cannons bought it,” Dayvault said. “My great, great grandfather had 72 acres right in the middle of the property. He sold it to Mr. Cannon in 1905 for 1,200 dollars.”

Dayvault’s family farm was just one of many properties purchased by James William Cannon. Altogether, Cannon acquired over 800 acres of farmland which he used to construct textile mills and found Cannon Mills Company.

After the mill shut down, David Murdock, the owner of Dole Food Company, purchased the property and heavily invested in the launch of the North Carolina Research Campus on those grounds. As of 2020, the research campus employs about 1,000 people. UNC-Chapel Hill and several other North Carolina universities have research space on the campus.

Dayvault feels fortunate to be one of those employees.

As an intern for the City in 2008, Dayvault knew he wanted to return to Kannapolis after attending Catawba College but worried about job prospects.

“The economy was starting to completely fall apart and lots of people were being furloughed,” he recalls. “I realized early on that I didn’t have much chance of being employed by the City. Thankfully, UNC wanted to hire me to work on the research campus.”

In 2014, Murdock “doubled down” on his investment in Kannapolis by creating an endowment that would contribute $15 million annually to the North Carolina Research Campus. However, with much of Murdock’s focus on the research campus, the downtown area of Kannapolis (which he also owned) continued to languish.

Seeing an opportunity to leverage Murdock’s critical investment in the research campus, the City elected to acquire its downtown from the billionaire, and in so doing, jumpstart the economy of Kannapolis.

Creating a Professional Environment

For 30 years, the Kannapolis Police Department resided in an old funeral home. The chief’s office was an old embalming room. City hall was located in an unassuming storefront next to a Pizza Hut.

“We had professional people operating out of unprofessional environments,” Dayvault said.

“Since David Murdock owned the downtown, some thought he was going to continue to pour money into it,” Dayvault said. “It was technically his town, but it was literally crumbling by the day.”

Dayvault and City Council member Doug Wilson drafted a proposal to present to the City Manager and the Mayor to buy downtown from Murdock.

“A city purchasing its entire downtown—that has never happened in American history,” Dayvault said. “When that was finally done, it changed everything. It allowed us to hire DFI to get started on a plan—a huge master plan.”

That huge master plan centered around one major question: How do we make the downtown the heartbeat of the community again?

Creating a Road Map

When Mayor Darrell Hinnant discusses downtown development in Kannapolis, he starts by pointing out the unprecedented nature of the entire endeavor.

“Other cities have had projects to revitalize a city block or remodel a group of buildings,” he said. “But that’s not nearly as all-encompassing as what we have here in downtown Kannapolis.”

To navigate the massive undertaking, Hinnant and other city officials knew they needed to create a road map. But they couldn’t do it on their own.

By teaming up with the Development Finance Initiative (DFI) at the UNC School of Government, the City found guidance and much-needed resources to create a vision for the future of Kannapolis—and a way to get there.

“City governments are not land developers. We’re not real estate agents,” Dayvault said. “DFI’s private sector experience coupled with the University’s prestige and credibility—all in one package—that can really deliver projects for us.”

From the outset, Hinnant believed Kannapolis could evolve into a better place to work and live, but creating that new reality came with a barrage of important questions: How do we plan for new construction while also prioritizing historical preservation? What do we do about the buildings we have to demolish? Where do we start? What do we prioritize?

“DFI was marvelous with bringing developers in and marketing our downtown as a place that somebody wants to be in the future,” Hinnant said. DFI asked questions including: What drives people to visit and spend time in a downtown area? What types of businesses and attractions build both a sense of community and encourage commerce?

“We showed the City different options to invest in its downtown,” said Jordan Jones, a development advisor with DFI. “It’s not just about repopulating downtown with local citizens but also generating confidence and interest from private developers to execute the City’s vision.”

The team at DFI does its analysis and provides this information to City staff and council to make critical development and public investment decisions. One important step came when the City asked DFI to evaluate possibilities for a new public amenity downtown. After studying multiple options including a children’s museum, minor league baseball stadium, and a performing arts center, the City council decided to partner with its existing minor league baseball team to construct a new baseball stadium.

Atrium Health Ballpark, which was scheduled to host its first home opener on April 16, 2020, is anticipating annual attendance of more than 200,000 people in a baseball season.

A Vision for the Future

With DFI’s assistance, Kannapolis hopes to bring $400 million of new investment into its downtown over the next several years.

But economic incentive does not make up the heart of this massive effort.

“For me, it’s all about how can we help our small towns continue to exist in this modern world?” Jones said. “We see this huge urbanization trend, but there are a lot of great opportunities for quality of life in smaller communities. I think it’s about protecting that.”

For Hinnant, the most important goal is to build community. He envisions a future Kannapolis as a bustling, lively place where families want to raise their children.

“Bricks and mortar make buildings,” Hinnant said. “We want people to see their futures here. It’s what goes into aspirations and relaxation and a way of living.”

And Dayvault still holds onto the hope he had as a teenager.

“I don’t want it to lose its small town feel but it definitely has to become more active than it has been in the past 25 years,” Dayvault said. “And it will. Downtown will become what it should be—a place for people to come enjoy life.”