FAIRLAWN -- A regional economic development body with a vacant, nearly 1,000-acre business park in Pulaski County endorsed Wednesday the concept of committing a small piece of it to a $20 million home for nanotechnology businesses and education.

Virginia's First Regional Industrial Facility Authority earmarked $20,000 to the effort and then adjourned without another meeting scheduled until January.

That left unclear how the body made of up area government representatives might address numerous unresolved details, such as how to pay for the park. But its support gives a steering committee a green light to move forward with a preliminary marketing plan.

As envisioned, the proposed Virginia Nanotechnology Park would feature a 58,280-square-foot, multitenant building for lease to energy, environmental and medical companies using nanotechnology. In a takeoff on the words nanotechnology, energy, environment and medical operations, the project is being called NEEMO.

Nanotechnology -- working with particles smaller than a cell -- is an emerging science in which the New River Valley is ahead of the curve because of research under way at Virginia Tech and the presence of a handful of companies that have developed or are developing related products. It is expected to become a trillion-dollar global industry during the next 10 years.

Nanotech park tenants would bring high-tech jobs and generate tax revenue to be shared by all participating governments, under the concept. Worker training would be offered on the site.

"This is an attempt to look over the horizon for advanced manufacturing" and not an effort to copy the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg with its research expertise, said John White, Pulaski's economic development director, a lead member of the project's ad hoc steering committee. "We think this is a great way to build wealth across the region."

The region has a foothold in nanotechnology from which leaders hope to climb to new economic heights. A study by Tech's Office of Economic Development found that Virginia led the Southeast in National Science Foundation grants for basic nanotechnology research from 2003 through 2007 with 187. Virginia Tech and nearby nanotech firms captured 61 of them valued at $15 million, more grants than in any other region of the state.

Further defining the New River Valley as a nanotech hot spot, Virginia won 89 grants for applied research during the same period, the most of any Southeast state. New River Valley firms received the majority of them, garnering 47 worth $16 million. White called the activity a "cluster" concentrated within 90 miles of the business park.

The 935-acre New River Valley Commerce Park in Pulaski County, which is owned by authority members, is vacant. The vision is to put up nine buildings with a combined size of about 500,000 square feet on 35 of its acres. The $20 million, if raised, would pay for a road, some of the site work and the first building, an anchor structure with room for companies and classrooms.

The prevailing funding proposal calls for raising about $7.2 million from investors who may include member governments, institutions and private parties, and $13 million from state and federal government grants and other support.

While the project awaits approval, White urged the group to consider creating an interim home for nanotechnology businesses at the New River Valley Competitiveness Center in Fairlawn. The authority took no action on that issue.

The New River Valley Competitiveness Center is a 10-year-old business incubator owned by the New River Valley Development Corp., an alliance of area municipal government agencies. Already ensconced at the center are 15 tenants who employ 60 people. The tenants include both businesses and organizations.

But it is only 57 percent occupied with three manufacturing spaces available, two measuring 2,000 square feet and one of 4,000 square feet. NEEMO, conceptually, "fits really well," said Dave Rungren, executive director of the New River Valley Planning District Commission.

In a start, the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance is gearing up to spend $10,000 to call up to 300 nanotech companies across the nation. The purpose of making contact is to tell the companies what the region has to offer and ask whether the companies are interested.

"This will be a real-life case study [to determine] if the theory that we have developed about being a nanocluster has merit as far as attracting the attention of nanotechnology firms outside the region to possibly locate in the region," said Aric Bopp, executive director of the alliance.