The industrial blocks along West Farms Road in the Bronx, hard up against the Cross Bronx Expressway to the north and the Sheridan Expressway to the east, do not look like a welcoming place for new development. Buildings that once housed a hot dog factory and a metal fabricator are vacant. Another lot is used for storing towed cars. On a recent afternoon, the streetscape was quiet enough for one person to take a nap in his car.

A development firm co-founded by Gifford Miller, a former New York City Council speaker, though, is betting that the stretch, rezoned for residential use last October, can be transformed into what the Bronx borough president, Rubén Díaz Jr., calls “a small city.” The project, which is to include 1,325 units of housing and 46,000 square feet of retail space, took an important step forward this month, when it received $1.2 million in capital financing from Mr. Diaz’s office and another $1.3 million allocated by City Councilman Joel Rivera.

That money, combined with financing from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, will allow Mr. Miller’s company, Signature Urban Properties, to move forward on construction of the project’s first two buildings, he said. The initial plans call for a total of 237 residential units and 4,200 square feet of retail space in those structures, with low-income housing in one building and moderate-income housing in the other. Construction could begin as soon as early next year, Mr. Miller said, with the entire 10-building project taking seven to nine years to complete.

Mr. Miller, 42, who has been away from electoral politics since an unsuccessful run for the Democratic mayoral nomination in 2005, said one of his proudest accomplishments during his time on the council was the redevelopment of the High Line on Manhattan’s West Side. As a real estate developer, he aims to do similar “transformational development,” he added, by taking areas that have a negative effect on their communities and turning them positive. Mr. Miller founded Signature with a longtime friend, Robert Frost, in 2007.