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Daimler Trucks North America on Wednesday moved closer to building its $152 million corporate headquarters on Swan Island when the Portland Development Commission‘s board of commissioners unanimously approved an $8 million forgivable loan.

The company is planning to build a 265,000-square-foot facility along the island’s southern banks of the Willamette River. Construction is expected to ignite short-term and long-term economic activity.

Daimler’s role in Portland revitalization was not always so certain.

“I think this commitment that we’re on the cusp of making to Portland really signals our clear intention to be here for the long term,” said Josh Palmer, Daimler’s director of Project Nova, the code name given to the effort. “That was somewhat in doubt a few years ago … We have looked at other opportunities in other states.”

Several years ago Daimler announced it would shutter its Portland factory; then, in 2009, it turned about-face and said it would expand instead. The company has faced layoffs as recently as this year, and fears began to surface when white-collar workers were transferred to other headquarters in places like South Carolina. Daimler employs about 2,800 people locally, and 21,000 globally.

That anxiety was squashed in September when Daimler president and CEO Martin Daum, along with Gov. John Kitzhaber, announced plans to make Portland its official corporate headquarters, and build the new office facility. The project was contingent upon several sources of public funding: a $7 million enterprise tax zone abatement from the city, more than $3 million in state loans and grants, and the PDC loan.

“We are prepared to make a 20-year-plus commitment to stay in Portland, and we’re committed to bringing new jobs here in Portland,” Palmer told PDC commissioners on Wednesday. “We wouldn’t be here, and our management wouldn’t have made the decision to move forward, without the state and local support – a part of which you are being asked to approve here today.”

The PDC’s loan will be forgiven if Daimler invests at least $135 million, and adds at least 400 long-term jobs. If only a fraction of the job creation takes place, the PDC will reduce the loan amount by that fraction.

The PDC estimates that its loan leverages $17.29 for every $1 of its investment. In addition to the projected 400 new jobs (which are expected to provide an average salary of $80,000), Daimler’s investment is expected to support the retention of 1,574 additional family-wage jobs. The PDC also estimates that over the next 15 years Daimler will pay approximately $38 million in property taxes on the new building.