Still, "From our perspective, disaster was looming in the Mahoning Valley and today starts a new beginning," state Development Director Bruce Johnson said after GM's announcement Thursday.

"I wouldn't expect a dramatic or substantial (employment) decrease if they are able to produce 350,000 to 400,000 cars" annually at the plant, Johnson said.

GM will begin producing a new model in late 2004 after a $500 million renovation at the assembly plant and about $50 worth million of improvements at an adjacent metal fabricating plant.

The assembly plant alongside the Ohio Turnpike near Youngstown makes the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire. Production will continue during the renovation until those lines are replaced by the new model.

The plant, which made 320,000 cars last year, is one of the top producers among the company's 29 North American assembly plants, a GM spokesman said.

"I've been waiting for this for so long and it's finally happened," said Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112. "I'm just trying to enjoy the moment."

The complex employs more than 7,000 hourly workers, including about 4,200 in the assembly plant.

The company had estimated in a tax abatement application that it would need 2,500 to 2,700 workers in the renovated assembly plant, but those numbers are speculative, GM spokesman Pat Morrissey said. The company does not know how many people will work at the plant by late 2004, he said.

Detroit-based GM declined to give a name for the planned model but said it would be built on the Delta engineering platform used by its European subsidiary Opel AG.