TAMPA - Hillsborough County has agreed to buy 57 acres near the University of South Florida for possible use as a small bioscience research and development park.

The property, east of Interstate 75 and south of Fletcher Avenue, could ultimately be part of a larger research park being advocated by the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.

County commissioners agreed to purchase the land for $1 million Wednesday in a 6-0 vote. Commissioner Jim Norman was not present.

The land is currently owned by GMAC Financial Services.

Moffitt officials have said they want to partner with local government to develop a bioscience campus of roughly 150 acres. Ideally, any such campus should be close to the university to create a hub, said Commissioner Mark Sharpe, an advocate of the idea.

Together with other initiatives in the region, the project has the potential to put Tampa on the national map in the bioscience field.

"I think this is the most important economic development story in the region," Sharpe said. "We're going to become the Disney World of medical tourism and treatment."

Problem is, there are few tracts of undeveloped land in the 150-acre range near the university. Looking farther from campus could present zoning challenges, Sharpe said.

It is possible, he said, that the agreed purchase could be the first piece of a larger initiative to create a series of mini bioscience hubs clustered close to the university ultimately linked by mass transit.

"There is no perfect answer," Sharpe said. "We either act or we don't."

The land commissioners agreed to buy Wednesday contains about 14 acres of wetlands, further constraining its development. The money will come from a reserve account created by commissioners to promote economic development, particularly in the area of biosciences.

The Moffitt "campus" was proposed after the cancer center announced its plans to partner with pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. to build M2Gen. The newly formed company will research ways to tailor treatments for cancer payments.

Hillsborough County contributed $28-million to that project and agreed to spend up to $235,000 to study the feasibility of building a bioscience park or campus as a much larger Phase II. Commissioners heard the results of that study Wednesday.

It was conducted by Battelle, which looks for ways to develop and commercialize emerging areas of science and technology.

The study asserts that such campuses or research clusters have been key components of other communities' efforts to lure bioscience investment.

"These complexes are becoming the signature approach communities have," said Mitchell Horowitz, vice president and managing director for technology partnership practice at Battelle, told commissioners.

While the region has its share of research and development companies, they are generally spread out, Horowitz said.

"When this happens, people don't recognize you," he said. "They don't know what's happening because you don't have a signature place."

Horowitz said, however, that compared with other areas, the region has a good base of research and development enterprises in areas ranging from biodefense to tissue regeneration. And it has the makings of a hub in the area around USF and Moffitt.

"I think there's a great success story already happening here," he said. "Now you have the opportunity to move it up a little."

Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3387.