Ground Is Broken for Outlet Mall : Business: Officials take part in ceremony they hope is first step to bringing jobs and increasing tax revenues.

City officials gathered on a large dirt lot Monday to take part in ground-breaking ceremonies for a factory outlet shopping mall that is expected to bring new jobs and sales-tax dollars to Lancaster.

The developer, Yehuda Netanel, president of Woodland Hills-based California Factory Stores, said he’s banking on an “aggressive” construction schedule to get more than half the mall built in time to be open for the Christmas shopping season.

The first phase will contain about 40 stores, with another 20 to 25 to open before next summer. Netanel declined Monday to discuss which merchants have signed up to occupy the mall. But in April he announced that tentative tenants include Brooks Brothers, Bass, Carole Little, Jockey, Jones New York, Oshkosh, JH Collectibles, Van Heusen and Geoffrey Beene.

At factory outlet malls, merchants generally sell overstocked, discontinued and slightly flawed goods, as well as first-quality items at discount prices.

Netanel said he believes the outlet mall, to be built on Lancaster Boulevard just west of the Antelope Valley Freeway, will draw bargain hunters from a large area, including the San Fernando Valley and more distant parts of Los Angeles County.

City officials, who want to create local jobs and increase sales-tax revenue to pay for parks, law enforcement and other services, hope the mall is as successful as the developer predicts.

“This is something we’ve really been looking forward to,” Councilman Henry Hearns said during the ceremony. “We expect this to present some 400 jobs for us.”

Councilman George Runner added that the mall will probably generate $600,000 to $700,000 a year in sales-tax revenue for the city.

To move the project forward, the City Council last year voted to sell the 24-acre site to Netanel and gave him a 20-year loan to help pay for it. The council approved other financial incentives, such as building a road to serve the mall and using redevelopment funds to pay developer fees.

Although council members said the project will give a boost to the city’s sluggish economy, some local residents and merchants criticized the deal, charging that Lancaster officials were using tax dollars to aid a mall that might put existing shops out of business.