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A joint project between Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic is expected to have quite an economic impact.

A proposed medical research institute near downtown Roanoke could create 350 jobs over the next six years and annually pump tens of millions of dollars into the local economy, according to new details of a joint project between Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic.

Tech officials say about 150 of the new workers will fill core research positions and earn salaries of $90,000, nearly triple the average yearly wage in Roanoke.

The project will occupy about two-thirds of a $59 million building it will share with the medical school at the Riverside Center for Research and Technology on South Jefferson Street.

"The research institute is probably a bigger part of the plan than the medical school itself," said Roderick Hall, an associate vice president for research at Tech. "But the medical school is critical to undertake research work."

Besides the 150 new research jobs, the university plans to fill the remaining 200 positions with support staff with salaries of about $40,000 a year, Hall said.

To pay for those salaries, Tech is looking to bring in $30 million a year in grant-funded research projects by 2014 and attract the kinds of scientists now going to the "UVas, Dukes and Wake Forests of the world," Hall said.

If the projections are close, the combination of the two is destined to become a catalyst for new-business formation and could help jump-start Roanoke's fledging medical research industry, according to analysts and economic development officials.

Research will focus on real-world applications

Virginia Tech and Carilion are seeking state funding to pay for the new building, and the governor's office included $59 million for the project in a taxpayer-supported bond proposal winding its way through the General Assembly.

If lawmakers approve the current bond package, voters could approve it in November. However, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to fast-track delivery of the money by bypassing the need for voter support.

Tech and Carilion estimate the startup costs for the research institute at about $50 million. Another $20 million will go toward establishing the medical school. Those figures are separate from the costs of the building.

The startup costs will come from a combination of private gifts and investments from Carilion, Hall said.

Tech Provost Mark McNamee said the institute will help link the two institutions by focusing on translational medical research -- academic work that has real-world applications in patient care at Carilion.

"You're taking research discoveries and trying, almost from the beginning, to find ways to apply them to the clinical practice," McNamee added.

The university already has various pockets of federally funded medical research taking place in biomedical engineering and through its collaboration with an osteopathic medical school in Blacksburg.

But its expansion in Roanoke is part of a broader strategy to beef up the university's human health programs so it can better compete for federal funding from the National Institutes of Health, Hall said. NIH is the nation's largest funder of medical research.

The planned medical campus is also a piece of Carilion's long-standing vision to transform the 27-acre business park, which it owns, into a hub for cutting-edge health care research and education.

Virginia Tech already has located an obesity research laboratory at the center. It joined with Carilion last year to open the lab, which is supported through federal grants, in the center's only office building.

It now employs seven, including a primary researcher.

Once the medical campus is established, Virginia Tech plans to take full ownership of the new institute, while the medical school will become an independent nonprofit organization with its own board of directors, Hall said.

In the meantime, Virginia Tech and Carilion continue to move forward with plans to begin construction as early as this summer.

Hall said Tech expects to name a director for the institute within the next month and plans to have more than half of the institute's 43 research teams in place by the time the medical college enrolls its first class in 2010.

By the fourth year, the university expects the researchers to draw funding for their teams entirely through federal grant money, Hall said.

Officials: Institute will drive regional economy

Economic development leaders in Roanoke say they can't remember another new employer announcing jobs with such high wages.

"Generally, we're in the $30,000 to $35,000 range," said Phil Sparks, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership.

In fact, only 5 percent of Roanoke residents earned salaries above $75,000 in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And while few hundred more jobs are not going to increase the region's total job numbers dramatically, the salaries will likely raise the economic base in the city, said Bill Mezger, chief economist for the Virginia Employment Commission.

The total job count for the Roanoke metropolitan region is about 166,000, he said.

For one, high-paying jobs can have a significant impact on housing, said Brian Brown, Roanoke's economic development administrator.

"Many of those people will want to live in the city itself and higher salaries lead to higher housing prices," he said.

The types of jobs also dovetail with the city's goal of attracting more young professionals to the area, Brown said.

If all the 150 research positions are filled, the institute will triple the number of scientific research workers in the city, said Christine Chmura, a Richmond-based economist and founder of Chmura Economics & Analytics.

Right now, only 51 people working in Roanoke are described as providing scientific research and development, Chmura said. The average salary for this work in the area is $56,800 while the state average is closer to $89,000, she said.

"Any time you bring in a firm that pays wages higher than the average for the region, it is good news. It tends to lift the living standards in the area. It tends to provide demand for services," Chmura said.

A costly endeavor that few undertake

The still-unnamed institute may also draw other companies, such as suppliers, to the city, Chmura said.

"So that could add to a positive ripple effect to this expansion," she said.

So far, neither Carilion nor Virginia Tech has released projections for the medical school's employee totals.

Provost McNamee said he anticipates the core faculty for the medical college will remain in the dozens and that most of the teaching staff will come from existing employees at Carilion and Virginia Tech.

But according to studies by Pittsburgh research company Tripp Umbach, a new medical school can have an economic impact of anywhere from $150 million to $200 million annually after its fourth year of operation. Plus, the research institute's ability to secure federal grant money will add to money flowing into the local economy from outside sources.

"Those are fresh dollars coming from out of state," said Paul Umbach, president and founder of Tripp Umbach, which studies the economic impact of new medical schools.

The money will likely trickle down to other sectors of the economy, such as housing, retail and restaurants, and come in through events, conferences and people visiting the medical campus, he said.

At the same time, developing a research center alongside a new medical college is a costly endeavor that few other academic institutions nationwide are willing to take on.

Most universities establish the medical school first and later focus on building the pricier laboratory space required for research programs.

"You're looking at spending twice as much for a research building," Umbach said, noting that for many new medical schools that cost is prohibitive.