ST. LOUIS • For years, many people have said this region doesn't do enough to boost entrepreneurship. Now some of those people are putting some money where their mouth is.

A group of local businessmen today will unveil Arch Grants, a new program designed as a national competition to bring entrepreneurs to St. Louis by giving the best of them $50,000 apiece to start a company here. The plan, they say, is to put this city on the map as a startup hub.

The program is the brainchild of four local businessmen who say they have watched for decades as the regional economy has grown slowly, said Jerry Schlichter, a downtown attorney and the group's president. They have read all the dour headlines and watched smart young people leave town.

"We're all just tired of it and we want to do something about it," he said.

Hence, Arch Grants. The group has spent about a year devising the competition, forming a 501(c)3 nonprofit and raising money. So far they have about $2 million in grants and donations committed over three years, Schlichter said. They they plan to dole out 10 grants at a time to promising entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries willing to launch companies downtown.

They will solicit entries this spring at business schools and startup groups nationwide, and among the local entrepreneurship community, then have an expert panel pick winners in May. By June, Schlichter hopes the startups will be in St. Louis.

The winners get more than just cash. The package comes with discounted housing and office space downtown, access to a panel of advisers and local universities and free professional services from local legal and accounting firms. And, while the program is designed to help entrepreneurs meet investors, nearly everyone agreed that making the $50,000 a grant - not an investment or loan that must be paid back - is a key piece of the program. It allows the entrepreneur to keep a full stake in the company, and offer more value to investors down the line.

"That's wonderful," said Jerome Katz, a professor of entrepreneurship at St. Louis University. "A gift is better than an investment. It sidesteps a lot of complex issues."

It is hard to measure the success of these sorts of programs, said Lesa Mitchell, vice president for Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Kansas City. But other places that have launched grant-based startup competitions have seen good results. Entrepreneurs have come - a four-year-old program in Chile has attracted MBAs from Stanford and Harvard - and new companies have grown.

"And we all know that most new jobs come from companies that are less than five years old," Mitchell said. Missouri came in 44th among states on Kauffman's most recent ranking of entrepreneurial activity from 2008 through 2010. It has long lagged the national average.

Recent years have seen a wide range of efforts designed to help support startups in St. Louis - everything from mentoring programs to new business incubators to so-called "angel" investment groups. These efforts also have supported creation of a pipeline particularly for technology startups, which tend to create well-paying jobs. Arch Grants are another piece of that puzzle, said Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University.

"There's a lot going on here," Harrington said. "The thing that's really favorable is that over the last five years, not only in biotech but elsewhere, we are expanding greatly the support system for entrepreneurs."

It is that support system - at least as much as the money - that has long set apart startup hubs like the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and Austin, Tex., from would-be competitors, Harrington said. A national competition, backed with money and resources, will help St. Louis get in the conversation.

And that is the goal, said Schlichter: Imprint St. Louis more clearly on the map of entrepreneurship in this country. Attract talented businesspeople. Start companies. Create jobs.

Schlichter, who has been co-founding the project with Zack Boyers, the head of U.S. Bancorp's Community Development Corp.; Joe Schlafly, a senior vice president at Stifel Nicolaus; and downtown real estate developer Robert Guller, said he thinks Arch Grants will grow from its initial $2 million budget as word spreads and companies get started. And he hopes St. Louis' economy will grow as a result.

"We're excited," he said. "We want to see St. Louis become a more vital, entrepreneurial, city."