Celebrate. Then hope.

Groundbreaking for The Scripps Research Institute will take place today at the rural, isolated citrus grove where Palm Beach County chose to build the centerpiece of Florida's venture into biotech. It would have been more appropriate to stage the ground-breaking in a courtroom.

For all of Scripps' promise, there is a discouraging and needless subplot to today's festivities. If Scripps was strictly science, more than two years after Gov. Bush lured the institute with $310 million, there wouldn't be protesters plotting to upstage the groundbreaking and lawsuits waiting to be heard in federal and state court.

Scripps holds the potential to transform Palm Beach County and the region, perhaps converting it into a research center on a par with North Carolina's Research Triangle Park or well-established centers in Boston, San Diego and San Francisco. The day could have been one of unfettered praise for Gov. Bush and Scripps President Richard Lerner. Instead, they stand before a divided public, the moment emblematic of the split. Images of Gov. Bush and Dr. Lerner at Mecca Farms will appear on closed-circuit television in a room full of dignitaries at the PGA Resort, nearly 15 miles away. Mecca Farms is too far out and the existing road network too ill-suited to host the crowd. What if it rains?

Palm Beach County has committed to turning that former orange grove into a jobs center to rival downtown West Palm Beach, replacing dirt roads with boulevards and thus threatening the neighborhoods and wetlands around Mecca. When all costs are considered, the county is putting $500 million on the line, to go with the state's money. Gov. Bush argued for Mecca because, he said, it offered the size needed to deliver spinoff businesses he expects Scripps to draw. To environmentalists, neighbors and this newspaper, it appeared more like an old-fashioned Florida land grab, relying on a single attraction to continue westward sprawl.

The lawsuits that begin Monday with a federal case in Miami present a dangerous challenge to the governor's vision. They could have been avoided if he and some business leaders had substituted their preferred site for an equally powerful biotech center next to Interstate 95 and the Abacoa project in Jupiter. Abacoa is a community awaiting a jobs center. Mecca is a jobs center awaiting a community.

Builders stand ready to deliver community -- the homes and stores planned to complement biotech labs -- even as Scripps stands ready to deliver great science. To his credit, Dr. Lerner has promised to remain in Palm Beach County even if courts rule against Mecca Farms. He never wanted to be in a fight over growth in Florida. Because Mecca Farms remains the choice, he is.