Firms Race to Build Factory Outlet Centers : Development: Planners delay voting on a complex near Gorman. The Lebec project is also on hold. Possible tenants await the outcome.

It’s the Summer Games, developer style.

This competition involves two well-matched contenders in a race to build giant factory outlet centers within five miles of one another off the Golden State Freeway on the Grapevine, the stretch of Tejon Pass winding through the Tehachapis on the Los Angeles-Kern County border.

The players are publicly cagey--they maintain, when asked, that the area can sustain two competing centers.

But at the same time, they have quietly been using the courts and other means to trip each other up in the contest to win approvals and start construction first.

“They’re really going at each other,� said a Los Angeles County planner who asked not to be identified.

Whoever makes it to the finish line first has a better shot of attracting a tiny pool of available tenants, industry experts say.

The race moved Wednesday to the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, which took testimony and postponed a decision until Sept. 2 on one of the projects--an 85-store factory outlet center near Gorman proposed by Washington-based McArthur/Glen Group. The center would also include a retail strip center built by The Sammis Co. of Westlake Village, with a two-story, 80-room motel, five restaurants, two gas stations and a small convenience market.

But McArthur/Glen in the meantime has succeeded in stalling its competitor, Ginsburg Craig Associates of Newport Beach, which wants to build a 40-store outlet center just up the freeway in the Kern County community of Lebec.

McArthur/Glen sued Kern County for approving the Ginsburg Craig project last year without properly scrutinizing it, and won. Now county officials have to decide whether to certify an environmental report that the developer was forced to prepare as a result of the suit, delaying the project by about 18 months.

McArthur/Glen tackled its opponent on environmental grounds--even though it thought highly enough of the site to attempt to buy it for a factory outlet center in the late 1980s.

In the heat of the battle, McArthur/Glen also has accused Ginsburg Craig of secretly hiring well-known lobbyist and attorney Art Snyder to form a “front group� to oppose the Gorman project.

Snyder, members of the group--the Quail Lake Coalition--and Ginsburg Craig all deny this.

Snyder did acknowledge that he usually represents developers. But in this case, he said, he is working pro bono for the coalition because he is concerned about the environmental effects of the Gorman project, which is just northeast of the junction of the Golden State Freeway and California 138.

Members of the coalition include the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. They testified Wednesday against the project, saying the outlet center would destroy the scenic beauty of the area, among other considerations. Every spring, tourists flock to a nearby 4,540-acre area renowned for its display of wildflowers and designated by the county as an ecologically sensitive area. The outlet center would block views of that area, opponents said.

Watching from the sidelines as the battle continues are cash-strapped Los Angeles and Kern counties, which stand to gain tax revenues from each center of up to $1.8 million, and hundreds of mostly low-wage jobs.

Dueling Developers Two developers are trying to build major factory outlet centers within 10 miles of each other near Gorman along the Los Angeles-Kern county border. A. The Lebec Center: Ginsburg Craig Associates of Newport Beach wants to build a 40-store factory outlet center on 25 acres located off Lebec Road north of Frazier Mountain Park Road. B. The Gorman Center: McArthur / Glen group of Washington wants to build an 85-story factory outlet center located on 50 acres located north of the junction of the Golden State Freeway and California 138. Another firm, The Sammis Co. of Westlake Village, wants to build a retail strip center in front of the outlet center that would include two gas stations, an 80-room hotel and five restaurants.