SOUTH BEND — A major nanoelectronic research center is headed to Notre Dame, and local leaders say it has the potential to power South Bend for generations to come.

It's called the Midwest Academy of Nanoelectronics and Architectures or MANA and it will be one of only four such research centers in the world. The others are located in Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, and Albany, N.Y.

MANA's mission is simple: inventing and developing the next generation of smaller, faster computer chips. Also known as "nanoscale logic devices," they could eventually power nearly everything electronic in your life, from cell phones and computers to CAT scan machines and cars.

The $61 million research facility will be a collaboration between Purdue University, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, Penn State University, Argonne National Laboratory, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, but Notre Dame researchers will lead the team.

The facility will start in Notre Dame's newly constructed engineering hall, but will eventually occupy the first building at Notre Dame's new Innovation Park on State Road 23.

The impact of that research could reach far beyond just the university.

South Bend's old Studebaker Corridor could play a key role, too, because it could eventually become the home to "spin-offs" of the new nanotechnology. Companies who want to use the brand new technology to develop and manufacture new products could set up shop in the now unused corridor.

Local leaders say that could mean economic stability and good paying jobs across the region for decades to come.

It's exactly the news Lisa Robinson has been waiting years to hear.

From her back porch, she can see the old, rundown Studebaker buildings. It's even worse in the winter.

"This time of year, that's what you have," she said, pointing to the buildings through the leafless branches of the trees down her street. "It was kind of nice when they cleared the area out. [And I've been waiting for something else to happen], yeah."

So when she heard her backyard could soon be part of what local politicians called the "new Silicon Valley" Tuesday, she had a simple reaction.

"It would be nice. It would be something nice to look at," she said.

At a news conference at the top of the Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library Tuesday, local leaders said it could mean much more than just that.

"This may be the biggest development industry wide, since the arrival of the Studebaker family," Congressman Joe Donnelly, (D-South Bend) told the crowd assembled for the event. "This is a life changing event for the University of Notre Dame and South Bend. This will provide jobs and investment for generations to come."

"It will be transformative for the entire region," agreed South Bend Mayor Steve Luecke. "As these ideas move from conceptual to real products, it will help us attract new investment and new jobs that will transform this community just like Studebaker and Oliver did in the early days of manufacturing."

But Luecke says this investment has an opportunity for growth that Studebaker never saw.

"[This has] the opportunity to create multitudes of new products we don't even imagine yet," he said.

The potential spin-offs don't stop in the Studebaker corridor. Many existing companies in the South Bend area like tool and die shops or plastics manufacturers may have the opportunity to get in on a new technology on the ground floor.

It's already happening at one of the other Nanoelectronics Research Initiative sites in Albany.

More than 1,000 new jobs have been created since it opened, and economists there project its impact on the local economy at over $4 billion so far.

But experts say South Bend's site could be even bigger.

"In the next 10-15 years, we've got to find something else to use," said Jeff Welser, director of the Semiconductor Research Corporation's Nanoelectric Research Initiative, the driving force behind the South Bend project.

SRC is a consortium of six major U.S. players in the technology sector: IBM, AMD, Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron and Freescale.

"What we're looking at now are, what's the basic science we need to create that new transistor?" said Welser. "Once we find the answer, the possibilities are almost endless if you have the infrastructure in place to do it. And I think Indiana's doing the right thing here with getting that infrastructure in place."

"We know for sure that that world is going to demand smaller, quicker, cooler, more powerful switches," agreed Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. "And somebody's going to devise them. And it could well be right here. South Bend could be the center of that."

"It's a worldwide race," he continued. "The potential here is really boundless. We're thrilled when Cummins, or Honda, or Toyota, or Nestle builds a great big plant in our state and we can see it getting bigger. But this could lead to something bigger than all of them put together, and has no upper limit because of the value the technology would add to the world."

Lisa agrees it's an exciting opportunity for new jobs and growth. But for her, the biggest impact is the potential for a better neighborhood.

After all, it may not be a real park, but at least "innovation" means "in use."

The new research center will receive financial support from both the public and private sectors, with about half of the $61 million price tag coming from the participating universities.

The State of Indiana will provide another $15 million, and South Bend will chip in $1 million. The rest of the funding will come from private donors or companies.

Local leaders are quick to caution the potential changes won't happen overnight.

Even though semiconductor and nanoelectronic research is already underway at Notre Dame, the new research center at Innovation Park won't be up and running for another two years.

The goal is to identify the new semiconductor technology within the next 3-5 years.

But Mayor Luecke says South Bend isn't waiting until then to market the Studebaker site to potential nanotechnology offshoot companies.

He hopes to have products rolling out of the old corridor as early as 2013.