In a modest office on the eighth floor of the Chase building, Emma Schwartz is shaping El Paso's future.

If she is successful in her mission to create a Medical Center of the Americas, which will require substantial community support, the payoff would include thousands of new jobs delivering cutting-edge health care to the region and medical science advances that, in many cases, target diseases suffered disproportionately by border residents.

Schwartz, president of the foundation responsible with getting the center off the ground, is overseeing the creation of a 50-year plan for a bio technology campus that would provide impetus for everything from pure medical research to the manufacture and distribution of locally developed medical treatments and equipment.

"It is creating the ability to take research from the bench to the bedside," said Lawrence Duncan, chief executive officer of El Paso Children's Hospital, whose medical staff is expected to participate in the venture.

"You get a nucleus that starts to draw more and more people toward it. (Then) it becomes more of a regional center than a local center, and because of where we're situated, it becomes international in nature," Duncan said.

A vision for the center was conceived nearly 15 years ago, and Schwartz acknowledges that some have come to think of it as fantasy.

"Some people thought it was a pipe dream, but now it's up and it's happening," Schwartz said.

The city of El Paso has dedicated about 440 acres for the campus and plans for the first building -- with 80,000 square feet of floor space -- are in the works, Schwartz said.

It will be situated near the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and University Medical Center.

Focus groups targeting local businesses -- including banks, universities and utilities -- are being used to gather information for a detailed business model.

The plan is scheduled for completion in October, Schwartz said, and will be used to leverage funding.

"What we don't want to do is just have a real estate development where we build the building and just hope people come," Schwartz said.

So she must ensure that capital will be available to support startup businesses, that universities have commercializable research and even that appropriate plumbing and electrical infrastructure will be available for the high-tech research park.

The Medical Center of the Americas Foundation is already looking for tenants, Schwartz said, but so far there are "no letters of intent or leases."

"We're trying to be realistic, but still reach high," Schwartz said.

"It's a tightrope to walk."

That fine line has caused Schwartz sleepless nights. She does not want to limit the scope of the plan unnecessarily because of its immense potential. But if it becomes over ambitious, the whole thing could collapse. "If we fail, nobody else will try this again," Schwartz said.

Early conceptual work has received votes of confidence from the El Paso City Council.

In June, the council voted to increase the amount of land for the campus and to provide economic development funding for a 20-year period. In the first year, the foundation has access to about $3.3 million. The money comes from the city's franchise fee, which is paid by El Paso Electric ratepayers who live inside the city limits. The amount is expected to increase as El Paso grows.

"I just think it's the cleanest, most exciting opportunity for developing high-paying jobs and creating and attracting bioscience and technology companies to El Paso," said former city Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who voted with a 7-1 majority to allocate the money.

The biotechnology park is expected to bring together the borderland's medical, research, business and manufacturing components to create an economic engine more powerful than the sum of its parts. The list of possibilities suggested is broad and varied.

The plan would leverage private investment, including philanthropic donations that allowed Texas Tech to create both medical and nursing schools. Texas Tech, University Health Sciences Center and the soon-to-open Children's Hospital, will provide a nucleus expected to attract other medical ventures.

"The fact that they are thinking 50 years out in a very organized manner gives everybody a chance for input and to get their (visions) aligned," Duncan said.

"We're all very connected. We all have common infrastructure needs."

Medical research at the hospitals will provide opportunities for commercialization. But Schwartz said related research at the University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and other educational institutions also will provide ideas that can be turned into business ventures.

Streamlining the process for patenting and transferring academic work into the business world will help attract investors, Schwartz said. She hopes to find a common structure that local educational institutions will endorse.

That process could slow the exodus of locally trained professionals who leave the area for lack of opportunity.

"UTEP graduates more Hispanic engineers than just about anybody," O'Rourke said.

"And they also are exporting more Hispanic engineers than anyone. If we keep them here, then they can branch out and start their own companies."

And, as has been the case with other technology parks, when academics, entrepreneurs and doctors mix during lunch or hallway breaks on the Medical Center of the Americas campus, they are likely to find innovative cross-discipline solutions to stubborn problems.

Cross-border partnerships are also anticipated.

Manufacturing capabilities would be tapped in El Paso and in Juárez, which Schwartz said already has facilities that can produce sensitive, high-tech equipment.

"For far too long, the city's economic development has excluded consideration of Mexico," said city Rep. Steve Ortega, who voted to devote all the franchise fee money to the center.

And this approach to economic development provides a resilience to economic downturns, said Jim Valenti, University Medical Center's chief executive officer.

"The need for health care and the need for health-care science advances will always be there," he said.

Beyond the new businesses and jobs created, residents also are expected to find easier access to high-quality health care.

El Pasoans would have access to clinical trials involving the newest treatment approaches, including drugs and devices, some of which would be for diseases common to the border.

"The (medical center) has the potential to ... address the serious health disparities that exist in the border region," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. "Improving access to quality health care along the border is a national concern because we cannot afford to have such a large segment of our population saddled with higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and others."

The medical research park concept has worked in other cities.

Texas Medical Center in Houston, home to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been used as a model for the El Paso center.

The center started in 1945, and now sits on more than 1,000 acres with 162 buildings that house 42 government and nonprofit institutions, according to the center's website. It employs 93,500 people and has an annual regional economic impact of $14 billion.

Will it be the same in El Paso? "Yes and no," said Dr. Charles Miller, Texas Tech's associate dean of research. "The economic impact relative to the size will be similar."

Valenti agreed that the model is scalable.

"We don't have the population of Houston," Valenti said. "But it's going to take us half that time just because of the progress we've already made."

Schwartz, who is pregnant, jokes about the long-term nature of the project.

"I'm trying to coach the kid into taking over for me," she said.

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.