A USC research campus holds the promise of contributing to theMidlands economy across multiple sectors.

Plans call for the campus to stretch from Assembly and College streets west and south to the Congaree River. Construction of the first building at the Arnold School of Public Health should get under way this summer.

The research campus is expected to take 10 to 15 years to build. A significant portion is likely to be devoted to health sciences activities, but the campus will not have a single theme, said Harris Pastides, vice president for research at USC.

USC has identified four research areas around which the campus will be developed, Pastides said. They are:

• Expansion in energy, which includes hydrogen and fuel cells

• Biomedical

n Nanotechnology

• Environmental research.

How development proceeds will be dictated largely by the willingness of commercial partners to locate on the campus, Pastides said.

“That is a huge priority we’ve got. Otherwise, we are just building buildings for the university, and that is not what this is about,” he said.

What the research campus is about is attracting commercial partners who want to work with university researchers to create new businesses.

The campus is being developed for USC by Craig Davis Properties of Raleigh, the firm that created N.C. State University’s Centennial Campus.

USC’s campus will be operated under the aegis of the new USC Research Campus Foundation. The foundation will finalize the contract with Davis on June 21, said Rick Kelly, USC’s chief financial officer.

After that, he said, things will happen quickly. “In the first six months, we expect to see a minimum of two, and possibly three, buildings under construction,” Kelly said.

The first building will be devoted to public health research. Planners also are looking at a commercial-partners building devoted to health sciences that would be built on the same block, which is bounded by Assembly, College, Park and Pendleton streets.

Craig Davis Properties likes that concept and believes the building would be marketable given all of the collaboration going on in health services, Kelly said.

“We just think that will be a dynamic place to have some private partnership growth,” he said.

Both buildings should get a boost from the newly formed S.C. Health Sciences Collaborative, which includes Palmetto Health and USC.

The initiative calls for four of the state’s largest universities and hospital systems to invest $80 million over the next 10 years to increase health sciences research. Each partner intends to contribute $2 million per year — a total of $8 million per year — which is eligible for state matching contributions.

USC and Davis are also planning a science and technology building on the old Hardee’s block bounded by Assembly, Blossom, Main and Wheat streets.

Researchers in the nanotechnology and energy groups are the most likely tenants for that building, Pastides said.

A second building will go up simultaneously on the same block to house researchers who do more desktop computing.

That building will provide another opportunity to recruit companies to move in, he said.

There also will be economic development opportunities for businesses to service the needs of people who will work and perhaps live on the campus.

Small retail businesses, such as coffee shops and restaurants, and residential units are likely to spring up on the campus and nearby.

Once the initial research buildings are under way, planners are considering picking properties three or four blocks away for the next phase to allow for just that kind of in-fill.

Growth is expected to be rapid.

“I’ll be surprised five years from now if we are not somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to 10 new buildings,” Kelly said.