Is a forecast of 15,000 jobs and $2 billion in economic activity a year too sunny for a medical school, teaching hospital and research facility in Austin? Or is it on the money?

State Sen. Kirk Watson has touted those numbers for much of the past year and spotlighted them at a news conference Thursday, releasing a six-page report prepared by Jon Hockenyos, president of an economic analysis and consulting firm in Austin. Hockenyos said his research is the genesis of those numbers, and he came up with them about two years ago.

"We have the opportunity to truly be a contender ... in competition with regions from Houston to Hong Kong," Watson, D-Austin, said at Austin Community College's Eastview campus. He was referring to the biotechnology and life-science industries -- which can include pharmaceutical and medical device firms -- that he expects to spin off from a medical school in Austin.

But economic development experts said having a medical school, teaching hospital and research center is no guarantee that Austin would see that amount of new jobs and economic benefit.

"It depends on the size of the medical school and teaching hospital" and how much public funding they attract for research, said Ross DeVol, chief research officer at the Milken Institute, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that does a variety of economic analyses. "It does take decades to have that type of return on a medical school and teaching hospital."

Joe Cortright, president of Portland, Ore.-based Impresa, which specializes in regional economic analysis, innovation and industry clusters, thinks the public should take the numbers Watson trumpets with a heavy dose of skepticism. Most of the nation's largest cities have a medical school, teaching hospital and research facility, but only nine areas have sparked enough economic growth to become biotechnology/life-science hubs, he said. They are Boston; Los Angeles; New York; Philadelphia; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; and Washington/Baltimore.

"These nine areas account for more than three-fifths of all (National Institutes of Health) spending on research and for slightly less than two-thirds of all biotechnology-related patents," a 2002 report he co-wrote says.

"Austin is coming awful late to this dance," he said Thursday.

Hockenyos, who attended the news conference but didn't speak to the crowd, said he acknowledges it could take 15 to 20 years for the economic benefits he estimates to be realized.

But, he added, "I think this is the greatest economic development thing in this community in a long time."

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Austin Experts Weigh in on Medical School Job, Economic Predictions