GREENVILLE, S.C. - While experts say the development potential of Clemson University's automotive research park is enormous, they say it might be optimistic to project that it could generate 20,000 jobs.

If the International Center for Automotive Research reaches the national average for employment at university research parks, it will provide nearly 3,500 jobs, according to a trade association's survey.

BMW Group plans to put a research center focused on information technology in the park, next to Clemson's planned new graduate school of automotive engineering.

Bennie Vorster, the executive who will oversee the center, said BMW may eventually house up to 300 employees in the four-story, 80,000-square-foot research center.

It likely will start with 40 to 50 employees, including some already working at its Greer plant, said Vorster, an information technologies vice president.

Executives with International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. said their companies would join BMW in conducting research at the park, but they stopped short of making significant commitments of personnel.

Greenville-based Michelin North America Inc. said it would also join in the effort, but hasn't yet defined its role.

Clemson's plans also include a full-scale wind tunnel that would be available to motorsports teams, and laboratories focusing on automotive electronics systems, safety/crash-worthiness, fuel economy and alternative fuels.

The new graduate school is expected to employ about 25 people when it opens in the fall of 2005, said Tom Keinath, dean of the College of Engineering and Science at Clemson.

Highly paid engineers and scientists, as well as technicians, secretaries and maintenance workers will be employed at the campus, he said.

Work at the Greenville campus will focus on systems integration, which integrates the mechanical and electrical systems of automobiles and is emerging as one of the biggest needs in the automotive industry.

Clemson president Jim Barker said that his school will collaborate with Greenville Technical College to prepare the technical staff needed as the campus develops. Greenville Tech president Tom Barton said that according to general guidelines, every research engineer needs four to five technicians for support.

"That's pretty common across the country. And right now there's a huge shortage of technicians in this country - a huge shortage," Barton said.

The 20,000 jobs figure came last year from Rosen Associates Development Inc., a Miami development company that Clemson originally picked to develop the park. Rosen Associates is still involved in the project, but will develop just 150 acres, instead of the entire 400, after a review of the park plans by Gov. Mark Sanford.

To calculate the 20,000 jobs number, Rosen Associates figured the 400-acre park had room for nearly 4.5 million square feet of office, research and "flex" space, said Tom Wells, the company's director of developmental services.

Assuming a certain number of employees for each type of space, Rosen Associates calculated a potential of 14,778 jobs on the campus itself, Wells said. Then it multiplied by 1.5 to account for spinoff jobs - the same "multiplier" that BMW assumed for its Greer plant, Well said - and came up with a total of 22,167 jobs created by the park, direct and spinoff.

Rosen Associates used the figure in a pitch to the State Infrastructure Bank for $12 million to build roads in the park. Later, Clemson included the 20,000 jobs figure in an application for state lottery money to endow professorships at the graduate school, but the university has backed away from that number now.

Still, at least one expert wouldn't downplay the number.

"Parks can do those numbers, but it all depends on the tenant base," said Bill Dean, president of the Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem, N.C. The park, which focuses on biomedical technology, is affiliated with the medical school at Wake Forest University.

However, Dean said parks typically take years to realize their potential. "This isn't going to be an overnight success story," he said. "People have to understand that."

A 2002 survey by the Association of University Research Parks found an average of 3,399 people employed at each of 79 research parks across the country. The typical park was home to 41 companies or organizations and had 1.3 million square feet of building space. Private enterprises occupied more than 80 percent of the space, the survey found.