The New River Valley Competitiveness Center is not living up to its name.

Management of the Pulaski County incubator is soliciting $2.6 million in financial backing from area localities to refinance its building loan.

The center can't balance its budget and faces an uncertain future. Without additional support, the center faces the risk of insolvency after June 30, officials said Friday.

Home to a combination of about 19 public businesses and regional agencies, with 60 to 65 people working there, the center is owned by the New River Valley Development Corp., a nonprofit organization.

Located in Fairlawn and open for more than 10 years, the center is preparing to tighten its belt, officials said Friday.

Its leaders are looking for help from the center's founding localities -- the towns of Pulaski, Blacksburg and Christiansburg, the city of Radford and the counties of Pulaski, Giles, Montgomery and Floyd.

To refinance most advantageously, the center must have a type of guarantee called a moral obligation from the localities.

"If we go to refinance without more in the way of collateral, we're not likely to get much better in the way of rates," Pulaski County Administrator and center Vice President Peter Huber said.

Huber and others hope localities will provide services such as cleaning, moving, accounting and general management instead of the center buying those services. If that happens, Huber said, the center would be closer to a balanced budget.

Some localities have stepped up to help with the loan strategy.

Pulaski County has pledged up to $1.3 million, Christiansburg pledged up to $350,000 and Pulaski town council members have scheduled a May 19 meeting to consider backing a portion of the planned new loan.

"I think they are going to participate in some form," said John Hawley, Pulaski's town manager.

If the center does not get a loan by the end of June, it faces insolvency, but both Huber and John White, economic development director in Pulaski, said they are confident the backing will come in.

"I think things are going to work out, but you always want to consider the worst of the possibilities and play out all the scenarios," White said.

Money is tight at the center for several reasons.

Occupancy has dropped from 73 percent in late October to about 57 percent, the result of both business success and failure.

When businesses succeed and expand, they move out of the center and new tenants must be found. But when businesses fail and close, the center is also left with a vacancy.

The center is home to some happy tenants.

"It's a very, very nice place," said Harriet Anderson, who owns Smiling Bulldog Enterprises, a wholesaler and Web retailer of collegiate products. She said the center's money problems do not seem to have affected her business.