The City Council on Saturday afternoon cleared the way for developer Sam Park to begin assembling the many pieces of what would be the city's largest shopping center, Gloucester Crossing.

The first definitive votes, a baker's dozen, all unanimous, came at the end of a tumultuous all-day session and climaxed more than two years of inquiry and exploration by city agencies into and disputation by residents over what continues to be a work in progress.

The deal is not done. Looming are difficult and potentially deal-breaking negotiations on tax relief and a decision by the state on whether to allow a traffic light at the intersection of the Route 128 extension and the center's access road that could influence the mix of shops.

Park called the effort at getting to Saturday's votes of approval "the most Herculean" he's been involved in "anywhere in New England."

Councilors shrugged off the last bitter outcries and condemnation of the project by opponents in the stifling midday heat of the City Hall auditorium to put their weight behind economic development, an expansion of the commercial tax base, jobs, local shopping, an assisted living home for elders and a hotel for business travelers and tourists alike.

Councilors and community supporters read the linked votes as launching Gloucester into a new era.

"This gets the game going," said Councilor Bruce Tobey.

"I'm looking at my grandson's future," said Councilor Sefatia Romeo.

"The biggest thing to hit the city in a long time," said Councilor Michael McLeod.

"Absolutely historic," said Ruth Pino, president of the Chamber of Commerce. "Gloucester has discouraged economic development for decades."

Opponents read the action as a dire turning point.

The Rev. Richard Emmanuel predicted the attitudes that made Gloucester Crossing desirable to the political and economic establishment would "spread like a cancer," condemning the city to "mediocrity."

Now the council must decide how much it wants Gloucester Crossing.

Potentially deal-breaking negotiations loom over a request Park has made for tax relief via a new state program, known as "DIF" for District Improvement Financing.

It allows the use of some of the new commercial real estate taxes on the project to subsidize the developer's investment on public infrastructure improvements required to accommodate the new construction.

The duration, amount per year and eligible infrastructure in the deal are subject to negotiation.

But in a fiscal impact report to the council, planning director Gregg Cademartori described a hypothetical arrangement by which 60 percent of the estimated $550,000 a year in new taxes on a $60 million project could be used each year for 20 years to offset an estimated $3 million in public infrastructure costs that Park is expected to incur.

By those calculations, the city would use $330,000 a year in taxes on Gloucester Crossing to help Park pay for the street and utility work he must do to fit the project into the city.

These include the cost of a partial widening of the highway extension, relocating the water line through the project site and expanding the sewer line.

Strengthening his bargaining position, Park's lawyer Michele Harrison told the council he was prepared to buy the city a new $250,000 ambulance once the retail portion of the project is underway.

Park asked the council not to make the project "unaffordable" by using its authority to increase the estimated $14,000 sewer connection fee. Councilors and opponents of the project characterized a $14,000 charge as too little.

"The overall infrastructure costs are quite substantial," Park said.

Park, who at the city's request agreed to add the hotel and assisted living facility to his initial concept for a retail shopping center, said neither peripheral service was viable without the shopping center.

The shopping center without the hotel and assisted living facility "becomes a bigger burden," he added.

"(Tax) relief is the engine that drives the hotel and assisted living," Harrison advised the council last Tuesday.

Council President James Destino acknowledged the importance of the coming negotiations. To project critic Stevan Goldin's urging of tough negotiations, Destino said he and his colleagues are aware that "if this (tax relief) is turned down, (it's possible) the project doesn't get built."

After the council approved the special permits, variances and 46 amendments covering details as disparate as a bus line, a taxi stand, a bike rack, deliveries, local preference hiring, high school internships, advertising and financial help for Main Street, Harrison said discussion of the incipient tax subsidy negotiations was for another day.

"I want to relish this," she said.

The council's unanimity belies a community deeply divided in an uncertain ratio over the risk/reward gamble of creating a 195,000-square-foot shopping center.

A councilor-at-large, Romeo said she thinks 80 percent favor Gloucester Crossing; letters to the Times suggest a less lopsided split.

Jason Grow's yes vote was perhaps the toughest. Opposition seems to be more concentrated in East Gloucester's Ward 1, which he represents.

"I couldn't have asked for a more drawn out and contentious discussion," said Grow at about 3 p.m., six hours into a session without even a coffee break. "I have no doubt however I voted that it would be greeted with great consternation."

He quoted the Planning Board's Sean Henry that Gloucester's character was too strong to be eroded by a shopping center or a traffic light, and said the city needs to "start expanding the tax base," a step advised by Moody's on Friday as essential to strengthening the city's fiscal stability.

Ward 2's John "Gus" Foote and Mayor John Bell were Park's initial and most ardent envoys to the city.

Both fought the state-backed 240-unit housing project that the previous owner of Park's land had been trying to build for years.

"I won't say (Gloucester Crossing) will solve all our problems," Foote said, but he lauded Park for honoring requests to add the assisted living component to the project and keep the site closed off from the narrow streets of his district.

"Mr. Park, I like you a lot, most people like you," Foote added.

"Almost 30 months ago, Gus Foote and I began neighborhood meetings with a developer who was open to suggestions," the mayor said.

He predicted Gloucester Crossing would "be a catalyst for future developments" but by itself Gloucester Crossing would create local shopping options for the first time since Ames in East Gloucester closed three years ago.

As the session entered its eighth hour about 4 p.m. Saturday, Destino made a futile effort to organize a consensus to urge the state Highway Department to allow Park his left-only traffic light, something the agency has written it does favor.

After Ward 4 Councilor Jackie Hardy announced she too opposed the light, the council agreed to put off discussion of the light until the council's next meeting on Sept. 18.