The state's Department of Transportation has also committed $10 million in federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funding for the initial year of a new plug in all-electric vehicle buyer subsidy program to attract clean vehicle manufacturers and encourage the purchase of any eligible zero-emission vehicle, which will be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

NYCEDC President Seth W. Pinsky said the plant is part of the city’s larger effort to support the industrial sector throughout the five boroughs, where progress has already been made at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator and East Harlem’s La Marqueta. “Whether it is by aligning resources, increasing access to financing or increasing access to modern industrial space, we are seeing these efforts change neighborhoods, whether it is a one-million-square-foot formerly abandoned warehouse in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, or this project, where Smith will actually be assembling new vehicles in Bronx,” he said. “We look forward to working with Smith to ensure future growth in New York City.”

The announcement comes on the heels of other large development plans in the borough, such as the $270 million Bay Plaza Shopping Center expansion project and a LEED-certified hotel near Yankee Stadium. Diaz said the new manufacturing plant will not only re-energize the borough’s local economy, but its image on a nationwide level. “In 1977, Howard Cosell once said ‘The Bronx is burning, The Bronx is burning,’ and those images still stay in the minds of many outside our borough,” he said. “People don’t realize the positives. People don’t realize how much investment is being made in our borough, but they are starting to realize. We haven’t had our story re-told.”

In an interview after the press briefing, Bryan Hansel, CEO and chairman of Smith Electric Vehicles, said the company originally thought investing in New York City would be a stretch due to the high cost of doing business, but the aid package offered by the state and local governments helped make their decision easier. “We have a relatively low cost of overhead, and when we came into a city this size, we really had to make the economics work,” he said.

And due to the emerging nature of the green industry, Hansel said Smith will be willing to train young adults to work in the factory by partnering with local community colleges on job training programs. “There is no place where we can directly hire from, so it is certainly a training effort,” he said. “We are looking for creative, talented and motivated workers.”

Hansel anticipates that the plant will be open by the second quarter of 2012. “As a core strategy, we see the Bronx as a permanent location,” he said. “We looked at the density, the amount of people and the amount of trucks. What we have to offer is a very economic product.”