In another sign of Harlem’s reviving economy, two car dealerships are set to open there on March 1, the only such dealerships in Harlem and the first in northern Manhattan in more than 40 years.

The initial investment is at least $60 million and may eventually approach $100 million, creating as many as 175 jobs.

In recent years, as the United States auto industry’s fortunes have declined and Manhattan real estate has prospered, city car dealerships have closed to be replaced by high-rises and other more lucrative developments. About a dozen multifranchise dealerships remain in Manhattan, all of them below 61st Street.

At the same time, Harlem has been gentrifying, helped by low-cost bonds, tax breaks and other investment incentives. But it has not been gentrifying uniformly, raising anxieties in different neighborhoods that are eager for jobs but worry about rising rents.

The new dealerships are opening in East Harlem, or Spanish Harlem, where the pace of economic development has lagged that of the more vibrant Central Harlem, which is well known for being the home to the Apollo Theater and former President Bill Clinton’s office.

But vacant land is more readily available in Spanish Harlem and closer to transportation hubs like the Triborough Bridge.

Yesterday, the new dealerships — Potamkin Cadillac-Hummer and Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem — received 60 new cars at the site known as Harlem Auto Mall, at 127th Street and Second Avenue.

The prime mover behind the project, aided by agencies like the city’s Economic Development Corporation and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, is the Potamkin organization, which has 50 auto franchises nationwide, including 9 in New York City.

Robert Potamkin, co-chairman of the group with his brother Alan Potamkin, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the organization started considering Harlem about five years ago.

"What was appealing to us was the location," Mr. Potamkin said. "This is the entrance to Manhattan, bridges and tunnels and drives and expressways, the whole deal."

When he inspected the site, he asked marketing officials the name of the smaller bridge next to the Triborough Bridge. They told him it was the Willis Avenue Bridge, which carried 15,000 cars a day, and was not included in the total traffic estimated because it was so small it was considered "rounding error."

"Most car dealerships don’t have 15,000 cars driving by," Mr. Potamkin said. "But we have 300,000 cars and rounding error."

Mr. Potamkin estimates the total cost of the mall, for buildings and land but not cars, is $50 million to $60 million. At $30,000 a car, what Mr. Potamkin calls inventory adds tens of millions of dollars to the final price tag, he said. Both dealerships will be run by African-Americans, recruited through affirmative action programs, one by General Motors and the other by Potamkin.

The president of Potamkin Cadillac-Hummer, Craig Lee, 46, is a former general sales manager at Princeton Porsche in Lawrenceville, N.J. He expects 75 to 100 jobs to be created.

"We’re anxious to be a part of this community," he said.

Otis Thornton, 54, a former salesman at Joe Heidt Volkswagen-Buick in Ramsey, N.J., will be the owner-operator of Chevrolet Saturn of Harlem. He expects 50 to 75 jobs to be created at his dealership.

"My market is going to be Harlem, the five boroughs, Westchester County and southern Connecticut, and I am just so glad to be here," Mr. Thornton said.

The immediate neighborhood of East Harlem has been making slow economic progress. Median income for the area was $14,896 per household, according to the 2000 census, up more than 30 percent from $11,348 in the 1990 census. Poverty has eased, too, to 43.7 percent of the population in the 2000 census from 46.4 percent in 1990.

"In Spanish Harlem, there has been great anticipation of the accelerated gentrification" seen in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, said Rafael Merino, chairman of Community Board 11’s economic development committee. He lives a few blocks from the new auto mall.

Mr. Merino singled out for praise the Potamkin officials behind the auto mall project because they consulted with neighborhood leaders.

Still, Mr. Merino said, his neighbors are anxious. "People aren’t really saying keep the yuppies out," he said. "But if the yuppies come in here to take over our neighborhood, buy our buildings and raise the property values so that we can no longer live here, well, that’s going to be a problem."

Paying $1,500 to rent a studio apartment "may be a cute thing downtown," he said, "but here in Spanish Harlem that’s not so cute for people who have been living here for 20 years."