Getting paid to eat multigrain chips?

Would you like to get paid to eat? That can happen at Spectrum Discovery Center in Kannapolis. Their business card reads, “Help discover the next great product and get PAID for your time!”  

I recently participated in a panel of eight women who discussed mouth feel, texture, taste, crunch and visual appeal of a snack food that is in development. After much discussion about description and the best name for the snack food, we tasted five different multigrain chips. Some tasted like they contained a lot of corn, some had a sweet undertone, some were crispier than others.

To participate in a future study, visit Spectrum Discovery Center to sign up.  You could be the first person in your family to try the newest product in your favorite grocer.

Welcome Tom Kincaid!

City Council swore in Tom Kincaid last night as our latest Council member. Tom is filling the late Richard Anderson’s seat and will serve the remaining two years. He is owner of Caremoor Retirement Center on Kannapolis Parkway. We welcome him to city government and look forward to working with him.

To contact Tom and other Council members, refer to the contact info on the City’s website (to be updated soon).

Public Art

Mike Legg and I had the opportunity to be part of the recent Cabarrus Arts Council retreat that learned more about the public art program in Charlotte and explored the possibility of creating public art opportunities locally. It was fascinating to hear about the program in Charlotte, which is managed by the Arts and Science Council. Many other cities across the U.S. have public art programs as well.

The value of public art comes in many subtle forms – enhancing urban design and the pedestrian experience, increasing accessibility and exposure to art, and making a place more engaging where people want to live, work, or visit. Public art is an investment in the long term vibrancy of a community. Public art can make an appearance in many places – plazas, greenways, parks, sidewalks, transit stops, buildings,  embankment walls – and ways – benches, fountains, tree grates/guards, lamp posts, murals, gates, etc.

While it is exciting to have access to the growing arts and culture in Charlotte, what are the possibilities of enhancing the beauty, culture, and history of Kannapolis with public art? Could our future greenways, civic buildings, and other public investments include a component of public art to create lasting impact? The City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County both have ordinances that dedicate 1% of public building project budgets to the public art program. That means that a $1 million building would include $10,000 committed to public art. One potential project that is currently being explored here for public art is the Transit Center that is being constructed on Ridge Ave as a joint project between City of Kannapolis and City of Concord.

It would also be great to see elements of public art pop up with private development as well – churches, banks, large developments, retail areas, etc.  This is just one way to create a better built environment in Kannapolis.

For the public art walking tour in Charlotte, click here. For more information and examples of public art, just google it!

Small Business & Entrepreneur Resources

Last week I attended a quarterly meeting for the Business Resource Roundtable for Cabarrus and Rowan Counties. This is an informal group of small business service providers – organizations that serve as resources for small business growth in the region. It is organized by Barbara Hall, director of the Small Business Center at RCCC, and helps to keep each agency updated about what others are doing. Here are some highlights:

• The Five Ventures annual business plan competition and conference is coming up April 13. This is an opportunity for early-stage, high-growth businesses to compete for awards and resources to grow their businesses. The deadline to enter is February 16. If you are not in the competition, attending the conference is a great way to hear about new business ventures and network with other entrepreneurs and service providers.
• Self-Help, a community development lending institution with an office in Charlotte that serves the region, has received funding to provide loans to small businesses that are unable to find financing from traditional banks. They are looking for small businesses ready to invest these funds!
• The Centralina Workforce Development Board has an incumber worker training program that helps existing businesses upgrade the skills of their workers to position the company for modernization and expansion. The grants are competitive and the deadline for the next round is May 24. For more information, click here.
• SCORE, the group of retired small business executives that helps existing small businesses, will be starting a marketing and sales seminar. Although the group is based in Charlotte, they are available to come up to Cabarrus and Rowan Counties for counseling visits.
• The Department of Commerce is working with the local SBTDC to offer Biz Boost, a program for companies with 10 or more employees to help them grow and create jobs. The companies work with the SBTDC on areas such as marketing, financing, and strategy development.
• The Small Business Center is offering two entrepreneur training programs to help people develop their business strategy and business plan: REAL (Tuesdays Feb 16 – Apr 13), and FastTrac (weekly, Mar 22 – Apr 7). The SBC also launched the Business Connector, a database that links the people who make purchasing decisions at the NC Research Campus to local businesses.

Small business and entrepreneurship are very important to our local economy, and we all need to do what we can to help them grow. For a more comprehensive overview of small business resources, click here and here.

Air Quality and other Green Issues

I had the opportunity to attend a joint meeting of the Cabarrus Chamber’s Public Policy, Transportation and Sustainability Councils this morning. The meeting was interesting with the bulk of our time devoted to the very poor air quality in our region. In fact, Rowan County has the 13th worst air quality in the U.S. Yes, you read that correctly. Thirteenth worst.

So what does this mean? From an economic development standpoint it means we are in serious jeopardy of losing federal road funding. What we really talked about this morning though were the lasting health impacts. For example, 2/3 of people with asthma live in an area where at least one federal air quality standard isn’t being met.

The Center for the Environment at Catawba College (picture of their very cool and very green facility is above this paragraph) has put together some great resources about ways we can all pitch in to help improve our air quality as well as learn more about the issue. They have launched the Campaign for Clean Air and are working to educate us all on the issue and the consequences of inaction. Most of the things are simple, but collectively they make a huge difference. You can check out a list here. The Center has also partnered with the Salisbury Post and has a special microsite that will be updated weekly.

It was a great meeting and I’m looking forward to looking more. It is my understanding that the Chamber’s Sustainability Council will focus on air quality in the coming year. As a side note, the council is close to finishing another project that will implement recycling in all schools in Cabarrus County (KCS and Cabarrus County Systems). I thought that was pretty cool.

All Aboard!

Late last week federal and state officials were in Durham, NC to announce the award of $520 million to the state of North Carolina for improvements to the rail corridor between Charlotte and Raleigh to support the implementation of high-speed rail. North Carolina also received another $25 million from the rail line improvements from Raleigh north to Virginia. The Commonwealth of Virginia received $75 million for improvements between Richmond and Washington DC.  These improvements are all part of the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor Project.

This new federal investment represents a major leap forward in making high-speed rail a reality in North Carolina. According to state and federal officials, the project is expected to create or maintain 4,800 jobs in the state’s private sector.  For more information, see Governor Perdue’s press release and the high-speed rail fact sheet included with the release.

This new funding is part of $8 billion set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) reserved for high-speed rail projects across the nation.  Some of the other recipients include Illinois/Missouri, Florida and California.   This investment will fund nearly 30 rail line projects intended to improve rail speed and service between the largest cities in North Carolina – including the existing stop in Kannapolis.

What does this mean for our City?  Several things.

1. Kannapolis = Rail. Kannapolis has always been a “rail city.”  Since the onset of Cannon Mills at the beginning of the 20^th century, the railroad and the mill were critically dependent upon the other.  Kannapolis (as we know it) would not exist if it were not for the existence of the railroad.  Generations of Kannapolis residents have grown up with the railroad being the transportation and economic backbone of the community.  The further investment in rail improvements as announced last week continues to be important to Kannapolis and the surrounding communities.
2. Long Standing Local Support. This appreciation and support for rail travel, rail commerce and rail safety has never wavered locally.  About a decade ago, the Kannapolis City Council reached an agreement with the N.C. Department of Transportation Rail Division to support its “sealed corridor” program.  This effort aimed at significantly improving rail safety throughout the state.  This program involved closing a number of crossings in the community (Ebenezer Road, Plymouth Street, C Street, etc.) in an effort to reduce train/vehicle conflicts and to reduce travel time between Raleigh and Charlotte (and beyond).  The changes were painful and politically unpopular locally but the correct decisions were made.  The enticement to the local community was that several rail improvements would occur over time.  Some of the smaller, safety improvements have occurred, some have not.  However I strongly believe that the success in securing ARRA funding is a result of hard decisions made be entities like the Kannapolis City Council over the past decade or longer.
3. Rogers Lake Road Overpass? The Rogers Lake Road Overpass (formerly Universal Street) is priority number 1 on the rail project list for Kannapolis. With the City’s recent construction of the Rogers Lake Road extension to Kannapolis Parkway, this corridor has the potential to be a true east-west thoroughfare which is sorely lacking in our City.  The bridge is critical to this becoming a reality.  With help from our congressional delegation in Washington, we were successful in securing a $950,000 federal earmark for this proposed overpass (this occurred well before the high-speed rail funds were announced).  This funding will pay for engineering/design and environmental planning work on an overpass structure at this location. While it initially appears that no funding for this overpass is included in the $520 million ARRA plan for North Carolina, this is not finalized.  Regardless, it appears that both the State of North Carolina and the Federal Government are committed to a rebirth of passenger rail travel.  This likely means other funding opportunities will likely arise to help pay for this much needed bridge.  This intersection is among the most congested peak hour rail road crossings along the corridor. (NOTE: planned short-term improvements to this intersection are slated to begin this summer)
4. A New Train Station = State Commitment. The NCDOT Rail Division, the City of Kannapolis and Cabarrus County participated in the construction of the new Kannapolis Train Station which ensures that Kannapolis will remain a vital participant in passenger rail transportation for North Carolina and the eastern U.S. for many years to come.  Confirming this commitment, a new platform canopy for the Kannapolis station appears to have been included in the $520 million High-Speed Rail ARRA application.
5. NCRC and Increased Ridership. Perhaps most importantly, the high-speed rail initiative will ultimately create far more ridership options for Kannapolis residents and its workforce than currently exist.  Most notably, employees and visitors to the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) will be the big beneficiaries of high-speed rail due to the strong education and research link between the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and Kannapolis.  Currently one of the daily trains from Raleigh (the Piedmont) arrives in Kannapolis around 9:30 AM and the return train to Raleigh leaves Kannapolis at around 6:00 PM.  The other daily train (the Carolinian) departs Kannapolis at about 8:00 AM and arrives in Raleigh about three hours later.  The return trip from Raleigh on the Carolinian departs around 4:50 PM and arrives in Kannapolis at about 7:45 PM.  Unfortunately the Carolinian originates in New York City and is sometimes late so it is a bit less reliable for those in Raleigh wanting to get back to Kannapolis/Charlotte.  However, the rail improvement plans include adding a mid-day train between Raleigh and Charlotte.   This mid-day train will allow for more flexibility for the visitor or worker at the NCRC.  For example an NCRC researcher can leave Kannapolis at 8 AM for a lunch meeting at a campus of one of the NCRC parent universities and then catch the new mid-day train back to the NCRC.  Presently, that researcher would have to wait until at least 4:50 PM to depart Raleigh – perhaps later if the train is delayed from the stops in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington DC, etc.

Ridership has been steady in Kannapolis since the Train Station opened in 2004, but it has not seen any dramatic spikes in growth.  That all could change in the next several years. There are several factors I believe will contribute to increased ridership in Kannapolis over the next several years (some are unique to Kannapolis): (a) The Charlotte station moving from N. Tryon Street to downtown Charlotte (scheduled for 2012), which will make Kannapolis the “northeast Charlotte” station; (b) reducing the rail travel time from Raleigh to Charlotte closer to 2 hours (the ARRA funding will help get us there); (c) congestion on the interstates continuing to increase and outpace needed highway improvements (which is probably a given); and (d) the  mid-day train becoming operational which will offer lots of convenience and flexibility to the business traveler – most notably for the NCRC visitor and/or employee.

Assume for a moment that we do achieve two hour (or less) rail trips from Raleigh to Kannapolis.  It currently costs $46 round trip.  It now takes two and a half hours (assuming no traffic delays) by car.   Now assume gas is $4.00/gallon which is quite possible again.  Also factor in two hours of quiet time with your coffee and newspaper, or better yet, productive time; laptop with an air card and blackberry in hand….and the hidden benefit of you helping to improve our air quality through the use of mass transit.  You be the judge.

All in all, the ARRA funding for high-speed rail is very good for North Carolina, very good for the environment and very good for Kannapolis, the NCRC and the Charlotte region.  If there was ever a project where environmental stewardship and economic development meet – this might be it.

Set your DVRs…

Fans of Orange County Choppers might already know this, but the show that airs this week includes a visit to Kannapolis. That’s right, our friends at Stewart-Haas Racing will be featured on the TLC show as they take delivery of the bike that was commissioned by team co-owner Haas Automation.

The episode airs Thursday, Feb. 4 at 9 p.m. on TLC.