“This project is the pinnacle of urban development in 2013,” Deputy Mayor Robert K. Steel said on Tuesday. “It has all the hallmarks of a Bloomberg administration project: transforming an underutilized asset into a place that serves the diverse needs of the community.”

To reach this point, the administration engaged in an unprecedented collaboration with the local community board and a task force starting in 2008. If Essex Crossing is built, it would also represent the culmination of compromises by various factions in the neighborhood and by the city itself.

Edward Delgado, who was a teenager in 1967 when his family was forced to relocate, said he had always wanted housing for families of limited and modest means built on the site. “We had to go along with 50 percent affordable and 50 percent market-rate,” he said, “or we would’ve had another 50 years of empty lots.”

The developers selected for the project — L&M Development Partners, BFC Partners, Taconic Investment Partners and Grand Street Settlement — won out over some of the city’s most prominent builders. In return, the developers will pay the city $180 million and start the first building within 18 months.

The announcement comes about three and a half months before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is to leave office, and some critics argue that his successor could easily overturn this plan.