Moving on up ... to Kannapolis

Sunday, February 24, 2008 3:00 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend | Editor's note: News Molecules are designed to give readers occasional tidbits of information about the N.C. Research Campus.

By Emily Ford

Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS — Two key players at the N.C. Research Campus soon will call Kannapolis home.

Or at least second home.

Dr. Steve Zeisel and Dr. Steve Leath, the "two Steves" as David H. Murdock has dubbed them, will move to Kannapolis to be closer to their work at the research campus.

Zeisel, director of the UNC Nutrition Research Institute in Kannapolis, is building a five-bedroom home on a lot he bought from Murdock at Kannapolis Lake.

He's just a swim away from research campus developer Lynne Scott Safrit, who has a house on the same side of the lake.

Zeisel will live in the modern French Provincial home while his wife, who's entrenched in a lengthy research project herself, will live in their Chapel Hill home.

"We will overlap weekends at one or the other," he said.

While Zeisel's house will be secluded from the hustle and bustle of the research campus, Leath will live in the midst of it.

Leath, the vice president for research for the University of North Carolina system, hopes to buy a townhome in downtown Kannapolis, "if the price is right," he said.

He and his wife will keep their home in Fuquay-Varina.Research campus developer Castle & Cooke is building 160 townhomes at the old Plant 4 mill site in the $275,000 to $400,000 range. The developer also may build 100 condominiums on the site.