Retailing has lagged population growth in the Inland Empire. Now officials are hoping a 131-acre outlet mall will kick-start it as . . . : The Empire Strikes Back

From its red domes and flag-draped spires to its high-tech thrill rides and wilderness attractions, the sprawling complex under construction at the junction of the 10 and 15 freeways appears to be an amusement park.

Stretching over 131 acres in the city of Ontario, it is actually the state’s largest shopping complex, melding the theme park and mega-mall concepts under one roof.

Scheduled to open Nov. 14, the Ontario Mills mall is the first outlet center to take a lesson from traditional malls that have turned to entertainment in a big way. A full quarter of its space will be devoted to dining and entertainment, including an AMC movie theater with 30 screens--believed to be the biggest in the world.

The scale of the mall--its rooftop alone is as big as 38 football fields--matches that of the hopes of Inland Empire officials, who are counting on it to propel the local economy.

The mall, built by Mills Corp., is the most dramatic evidence yet of the buildup of retailing in the Inland Empire. Lured by relatively cheap land prices and explosive population growth since the 1980s, retail developers and merchants are accelerating their push into Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

But the Ontario Mills project is not risk-free, retail economists say. They note that the operators of the mall 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles are counting on attracting shoppers from Orange and Los Angeles counties and beyond. It’s a question whether Ontario Mills can draw enough out-of-town consumers to sustain 200 outlet and specialty stores in its 1.7 million square feet of retail space.

(Several other Southland malls, though smaller in acreage, are bigger than Ontario Mills in terms of retail space.)

The mall’s prospects may be complicated by new trends in outlet mall development, some retail analysts say. Traditionally, developers have built outlet malls 40 to 50 miles away from large urban areas. Now, however, such discount centers are being constructed closer to big cities.

“There will be more competition for Mills because consumers will be finding outlet prices much closer to home,” said Ira Kalish, a retail economist at Management Horizons, the retail consulting arm of Price Waterhouse.

In addition, Kalish said, outlet centers will have to cope with competition from mainstream malls angling for factory outlet stores of their own, as well as the challenges of changing demographics.

“The Inland Empire is growing faster than the rest of the country--and that makes a retail buildup feasible,” Kalish said. “But baby boomers are getting older. They’re saving more and shopping less. There is some risk in this project.”

Local officials hope the mall will kick-start retailing in the Inland Empire, which has lagged behind the region’s explosive population growth. Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner believes Ontario Mills will be second only to the region’s sizable distribution and warehousing industries in generating economic growth.

Prompted in part by such projections, the city is building a $63-million convention center to accommodate business groups and tourists.

“Mills is attracting retailers who had not previously considered Ontario,” Wapner said. “We’re starting to get international recognition. Everyone in the retail and entertainment industry is talking about Ontario.”

The huge scale of the $150-million project is on par with the expectations of Washington-based Mills Corp., which is also building a smaller mall in Orange and operates shopping centers in Philadelphia; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Chicago; and Woodbridge, Va.

The company’s chairman, Larry Siegel, said he expects Ontario Mills to draw 15 million to 19 million visitors a year.

To draw shoppers, the mall is counting on many entertainment features such as the AMC multiplex.

Entertainment is already a key draw for shopping centers such as the Mall of America in Minneapolis, the biggest mall in the country.

However, Ontario Mills will be the nation’s first outlet mall to graft on amusement park attractions.

In the works, for example, is one of the first projects from DreamWorks SKG, the entertainment company formed by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. DreamWorks has teamed with MCA and Sega to form Sega Gameworks, which is building a futuristic interactive play environment for young adults.

The timing of the project is right, said Jack Kyser, senior economist at the Economic Development Corp. of Southern California. Retail sales in the Inland Empire are expected to increase 8% this year, outstripping the Southland’s rate of 5.6%, Kyser said. Sales in San Bernardino and Riverside counties began increasing in 1994 after a three-year slump and are expected to hit $17.4 billion in 1996.

The increase is largely pegged to the creation of new jobs, particularly in the distribution and warehousing industries. Toyota, BMW, Baxter Pharmaceutical, Michelin and Domino’s Pizza are among those using the Inland Empire as a base from which to distribute products.

The retail buildup in the Inland Empire has long been anticipated.

Hopes rose in the late 1980s when the population began to surge in the six cities surrounding Ontario Airport, the cargo-receiving hub of the region’s economy. The population in those cities--Montclair, Chino, Upland, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana--jumped from 387,000 to 475,000 between 1987 and 1990.

But when recession hit in the early 1990s, retailing stagnated.

Meanwhile, the population continued to grow as first-time home buyers flocked to bargain housing. The population in the two-county area, now 2.9 million, is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2000.

Retail developers such as Mills are seeing opportunity in the low land prices and rapid population growth.

Responding to the interest of developers, Ontario recently zoned 3 million square feet of land near the airport for retail, hotel and office development.

Some retail chains and developers have already made moves:

* Gottschalks, a Fresno-based department store chain, opened the largest of its 35 stores in the Inland Center Mall in San Bernardino in April.

* A developer recently announced plans to build a 2-million-square-foot mall in Redlands in San Bernardino County.

* Tanger Factory Outlet Center recently opened near Barstow Factory Merchants Mall.

Mills executives say their mall will appeal to shoppers interested in upscale labels. It will feature outlet versions of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, and even a re-creation of tony Rodeo Drive.

Though some retailers will be ready for the Mills challenge, others could lose much of their business to the Mills juggernaut, said Richard Giss, partner in Trade Retail Services Group of Deloitte & Touche.

“If I were a betting man,” he said, “I’d bet that the Mills mall will do very well.”