GREENVILLE — South Carolina will invest an additional $15 million into Clemson University’s automotive research campus in Greenville to build a research facility that BMW will lease, a company official said after a groundbreaking Wednesday.

The move raises the state’s commitment to $69 million of a $106 million project. And it makes BMW the first tenant for Clemson’s automotive research campus in Greenville, a project the automaker has helped steer, saying it needs highly trained engineers to sustain its growth.

BMW will pay a market-based lease to Clemson, but the amount has not been set, said BMW spokesman Robert Hitt.

IBM said it was contributing $1.1 million in software and expertise to help launch Clemson’s program, and a Microsoft official said the software company supported the concept and would announce its involvement in the coming months.

State officials have said the project was a new model of economic development — mixing public and private dollars to create high-paying jobs tied to knowledge — rather than attracting factories by selling cheap labor and cheap land.

Gov. Mark Sanford, speaking at the project’s groundbreaking Wednesday, said private involvement has become crucial while state funds are becoming scarce. He also said the project pitches to the Upstate’s strength as a hub for automotive suppliers.

Yet U.S. Labor Department statistics show the state’s automotive sector has cut jobs since reaching its peak of 43,900 workers in December 2000.

BMW has added 600 workers since then, but 2,000 jobs have been cut by makers of tires, rubber and automotive parts.

“The question is: ‘Will those jobs come back when the economy does?’ Quite clearly they will,” Sanford said afterward.

Clemson will begin building the research center and classroom next year. The research center is expected to open a year from now, and the $25 million classroom building will be completed by fall 2005, in time for the first class of students seeking graduate degrees in automotive engineering. The program eventually will have about 50 students.

Clemson’s foundation plan to buy $21 million in land through loans to be repaid from the leases from tenants such as BMW.

While the $15 million for the research facility was disclosed Wednesday, the state agreed to spend the money more than a year ago under a special bond bill passed by the General Assembly to encourage BMW to invest at least $400 million and create at least 400 jobs, Hitt said.

The company hired the new workers early this year and has invested most of the money, company officials said. It has invested more than $2.5 billion at the plant, and now employs 4,700 people, with most production workers making $24 per hour.

BMW and former Gov. Jim Hodges announced $60 million in incentives for BMW in September 2002, including $35 million for a new interchange on I-85 by the plant, and $25 million for construction of classrooms for a new Clemson graduate program in automotive engineering.

BMW, in turn, contributed $10 million to help match $15 million in state lottery money for an endowment to provide a steady stream of income to pay three top professors and their researchers.

Automotive suppliers are expected to give $5 million to complete the match.

The agreement for the $15 million center was not announced previously because negotiations had not been complete for Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research, Hitt said.

Last month, Clemson and state officials worked out a deal with Miami developer Clifford Rosen that gives Clemson control of most of the land. Sanford said then a major new tenant would be announced at a groundbreaking this month.

That day came Wednesday under a clear sky in a patch of freshly cleared ground in the middle of the forest that surrounds the John Hollingsworth on Wheels textile machinery plant near the interchange of I-85 and U.S. 276.

Greenville annexed the 400-acre site a year ago, and is overseeing the construction of roads and trails on the site paid for by a $12 million grant from the S.C. State Infrastructure Bank.

About 300 business leaders and politicians gave a standing ovation when Clemson president Jim Barker announced the new classrooms would be named the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Education Center.

Campbell, a Greenville native and governor from 1987 to 1995, attended the ceremony and participated in the groundbreaking. His negotiations with BMW led to the company’s 1992 decision to build the South Carolina plant, its first full manufacturing facility outside Germany.

Helmut Leube, president of BMW’s Greer plant, said Campbell was “the man who more than anyone else is responsible for BMW coming to South Carolina.”

Reach DuPlessis at (803) 771-8305 or jduplessis@thestate.com