By Laren Anderson

Kannapolis Citizen

Land and residential values here should soar with the creation of the N.C. Research Campus, real estate agents and urban developers said recently.

But how high those values go will remain unknown until researchers and workers move to the area, they added.

Chris Ferriss, revaluation supervisor for the Cabarrus County Tax Assessor's office, said the campus requires splitting many parcels of land in Kannapolis. The result is often higher land value.

And the scientific nature of the center will produce higher residential values, he added.

"If people are getting better incomes and better education," Ferriss said, "they are naturally going to want better homes."

During his much anticipated presentation Monday, billionaire businessman David Murdock said he will devote sections of the new Research Campus to houses and townhomes.

Murdock envisions the center as a collaboration between his companies, the state university system and hundreds of private companies. Murdock, the owner of Dole Food Co., is betting that more than 100 biotechnology companies will move to the campus, and their employees will fill the residential offerings and patronize the retail areas, when they're not doing research in the nutrition and health fields.

These complexes where people live, eat, shop and work in the same area are called "traditional communities" by urban developers, said Jeff Michael, director of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Urban Institute, which works in regional planning and consultation, surveys and demographic analysis.

"And for us in the planning community, that's exciting," he added. "There's a backlash right now against suburban areas."

That nationwide trend recently began when obesity was linked, in part, to commuting to work in cities from suburbs.

Michael said a research area like the campus, along with its homes and retail areas, will have "significant" effects on residential and land values. He could not forecast how much values will rise.

"Anytime you have anything of this magnitude," Michael said, "you're going to have a ripple effect where everyone wants to get in."

Nevertheless, the rise in property values depends upon where a parcel of land is situated in town, said Eric McKnight, broker-in-charge with the Kannapolis branch of Century 21 Cornerstone.

Homes and land near campus will witness the largest spike in property value.

"Many people here seem to feel that we hit the bonanza," he added.

Contact Laren Anderson at 704-932-3336 or landerson@kannapoliscitizen.com.