Hartford - It's been nearly 2½ years since executives of the Jackson Laboratory research institute landed in Florida and began seeking state assistance to build a genetics lab in the Sunshine State.

The lab was envisioned as anchoring a new research village that would help break the state's reliance on construction and tourism. When it became clear that Florida's legislature and Republican governor wouldn't or couldn't fulfill their request, Jackson officials moved to plan B this summer and discovered that they had a receiving line of other interested states.

And they found a governor who was willing to contribute even more state money than they had asked of Florida.

Two weeks after Jackson Lab publicly committed to Connecticut, new details are emerging about Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's plan to finance Jackson Lab's proposed research facility at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

Not only is the state prepared to spend $192 million to both build the Jackson Laboratory facility and furnish it with high-tech equipment, but it would also subsidize some of the initial research and agree to be left out of the royalties earned from any discoveries.

In exchange, the 173,000-square-foot lab would need to start operations and create 300 jobs by the end of a 10-year period. While the construction money would start off as a 1 percent loan, it would transform into a grant once the jobs goal is met.

Connecticut would also start chipping in an additional $99 million worth of grants to assist with the research - bringing the state's total investment to $291 million. And once the 10 years are up, the lab and its prize-winning researchers could choose to pack up and move out.

These finer points of the Jackson Lab deal, not widely available until last week, reveal the extent of the state's financial commitment to a project that contains significant risks, yet also the potential for compounding benefits.

The not-for-profit research institute based in Bar Harbor, Maine, says it intends to eventually expand the Connecticut lab to 250,000-square-feet by the early 2030s and employ 660 people. Yet under the current agreement with the state, as outlined in a background document released last week, the institute is not compelled to stay in Connecticut beyond 10 years.

For the deal's proponents, securing a presence in Connecticut of such a renowned institute would vault the state to the lead pack in the fast-growing field of genetics research and "personalized medicine."

The bioscience industry would take notice and soon other high-tech labs would want to come to Connecticut, contributing to a "cluster" of such firms that would serve as a magnet to attract more labs and researchers. A separate and already approved $864 million project to upgrade the UConn Health Center would accelerate these potential gains, these proponents say.

"When you get that critical mass of new researchers, then new pharma will want to relocate to be next to them," Catherine Smith, state commissioner of Community and Economic Development, said Friday.

But critics contend that that model has too many uncertainties to justify such a large expenditure of state funds.

"What the governor is doing is acting like a venture capitalist," said state Sen. Len Suzio, R-Meriden. "He's really taking a huge gamble. He's taking $290 million and going to throw it on the table in the hope this thing will come about."

Others, including state Rep. Chris Coutu, R-Norwich, note that the nonprofit lab won't pay real estate or corporate income taxes, and could even choose to abandon the facility that the state builds once the 10-year period expires.

"I know it's glamorous when you at first read about this prestigious laboratory that's going to come to Connecticut," Suzio said, "but I think the governor is counting on the razzle and dazzle to mesmerize people and avoid the tough questions that should be asked when you're talking about giving away almost $300 million."

Loan, or grant?

Malloy said last week that the bonding authorization for the lab will be taken out of his broader economic development package at a Oct. 26 special legislative session and voted on separately. The governor said that legislative support for the lab project is "widespread" but not "universal."

If the bonding is approved, the facility could open in 2014 following a 2.5-year construction period.

Several key details of the lab deal went unmentioned during the Malloy administration's formal Sept. 30 announcement. News releases heralded a "billion dollar" project that would lead to more than 6,800 permanent Connecticut jobs over 20 years. In a speech that day, Malloy said the state was contributing a secured construction loan and "research partnership participation."

But the fact that the state loan would be "forgivable" - in essence a grant with strings attached - wasn't publicized until last week.

And a review of the project's background report shows that the much reported $1.1 billion figure for the lab's eventual investment is actually a projection of what the facility's total expenditures would be after 20 years. That means the figure represents everything from construction to day-to-day operations.

Roy Occhiogrosso, the governor's senior adviser, said that Malloy and his staff were entirely aboveboard in providing information.

"You can accuse this administration of many things, but not being open and transparent is not one of them," Occhiogrosso said Friday.

Jackson Lab plans to finance the site's operations through a combination of federal grants, philanthropy and, most crucially, revenue from its lab mouse business. The institute reports producing and distributing 2.9 million mice a year in 6,000 different genetic strains to some 19,000 research facilities throughout the world.

More than two-thirds of the institute's $214.7 million in annual operating revenues comes from mouse sales and services, according to the background report. Another 30 percent comes from grants and the rest is from gifts and other sources.

The potential

Republican critics have also voiced doubts about the long-term jobs forecast for the project.

An economic analytical model predicts 4,000 new "spinoff" jobs in the biosciences once the project is fully complete by the early 2030s. There would also be 2,200 indirect jobs in sectors such as retail, construction and food services.

Finance models predict that the state would recoup its entire $291 million investment by 2021.

State Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said the communities of Farmington and West Hartford are excited about the jobs potential.

"We know it's more than 300 jobs," Bye said. "We know it's our restaurants, we know it's our real-estate agents, we know it's our kids who are just getting out of college who could do research in the labs."

Nevertheless, Suzio, the Meriden Republican, remains critical of the deal the state negotiated. He pointed out that there is no agreement in place for the state to share the proceeds of any discoveries made in the lab.

"In the typical venture-capital situation, if they hit it big, you get big," Suzio said. "We don't get one penny if they hit it big - it's all indirect benefits."

The Pfizer example

When Jackson Lab was trying to build a similar and slightly smaller research facility in Florida earlier this year, state officials there obtained an agreement for a 10 percent royalty on intellectual property licensed by the "The Jackson Laboratory - Florida" during its first decade of operation. That royalty was to be split between the state and whatever county the lab was built in, according to a copy of the proposal.

Commissioner Smith confirmed that Connecticut does not have an agreement to share royalties with Jackson Lab.

The institute eventually abandoned its attempts to build in Florida because officials there were unwilling to provide the desired incentives: $100 million from the state and $100 million from the county.

One proposed site was Sarasota. A report in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune said that Jackson Lab started hiring a team of lobbyists to help sell its project to the legislature, but the effort likely came too late. Republican Gov. Rick Scott continued to hold "underlying concerns" about whether the genetics lab was a fair investment for taxpayers.

"The main thing was the governor wanted to make sure there was a return on investment," Jackie Schutz, deputy press secretary for the Florida governor, told The Day on Friday.

Jackson Lab's executives have said that they were then approached by multiple states before ultimately deciding to build in Connecticut.

Occhiogrosso said the competition remains fierce, and some states have made contact with Jackson Lab in case its plans here unravel.

Offering another reason why the lab project is a good deal for Connecticut, Occhiogrosso pointed to the example of Pfizer Inc. in Groton, which is moving hundreds of research unit jobs to Cambridge, Mass., to take advantage of the greater density of researchers and research companies and universities there.

The presence of Jackson Lab would add to the density of Connecticut's own research infrastructure, helping to retain jobs and attract new ones.

"The larger point is that Connecticut is in the process of becoming a leader in a growth industry," Occhiogrosso said. "When was the last time that happened?"

j.reindl@theday.com