MIRAMAR, Fla. -- When Vicki Coceano heard what millionaire video and sports mogul H. Wayne Huizenga had in mind for 2,500-acres of marshy land, the 70-year-old mayor of this South Florida town just northwest of Miami thought, "Gee . . . this is marvelous."

Any government official would gush over the prospect of a $1 billion sports and entertainment complex with 20,000 jobs and a dizzying array of attractions: a hockey arena for Mr. Huizenga's Florida Panthers, a 45,000-seat baseball stadium with a retractable roof for his Marlins, a "virtual reality" village, a 36-hole public golf course, community parks, a roller rink, hotels and resorts, studio facilities for motion pictures, television and music.

But to build Blockbuster Park, Mr. Huizenga needed a district he could call his own. And he got it -- Florida officials created, in the words of one Wall Street analyst, a modern-day version of the Greek city-state, "a feudal empire within a state."

The state legislature approved a special district last month for the park parcel and endowed it with powers usually reserved for government -- the ability to borrow money, sell tax-exempt bonds, even increase the Florida sales tax of 6 cents on the dollar by a penny in the district.

This is a new twist in an increasingly competitive game -- trying to snare big business in the push for job-producing, economy-boosting ventures. Governors and economic development chiefs offer road money, tax breaks, job-training and other incentives. The bidding between states became so intense that the National Governors' Association last summer adopted a policy encouraging competition based on "quality public services," not just handouts.

Still, states are vying for football teams and sports complexes, Mercedes-Benz plants, high-tech industry and, more recently, gambling casinos and theme parks.

"If you take a look at what various localities want to encourage in terms of building a tax base, we have started to see, over the past three to four years, a boom in location-based entertainment, taxable-based entertainment," said Keith Benjamin, a stock analyst with Robertson Stephens & Co. Inc. in San Francisco.

And while gambling casinos and riverboats may be the best example, said Mr. Benjamin, "the Blockbuster sports complex is just part and parcel of a pretty significant countrywide trend": The refurbishment of the Six Flags theme parks across the country by Time-Warner Inc. The purchase of theme parks in Cincinnati, Richmond, Va., and Charlotte, N.C., by Paramount Communications Inc. The growth of Fiesta Texas theme park in San Antonio.

"Wherever you look around the states, you see the demand developing for regional theme parks that are very close to people's homes," said Christopher Dixon, an analyst for PaineWebber in New York. "So, Florida has a unique opportunity [with the Blockbuster project]. It functions as a destination resort like Orlando as well as drawing on the local populace from the Miami area. . . . From a public policy point of view, if you're looking to develop an area, why not do it with someone who has the demonstrated skills of Mr. Huizenga?"

Mr. Huizenga, owner of three sports franchises in Florida, built a megamillion-dollar fortune from a garbage-hauling firm. His financial interests range from Blockbuster Video and Spelling Entertainment to a drug testing firm and franchiser of indoor children's playgrounds.

But it's precisely because of Mr. Huizenga's wealth and success that some Floridians have criticized the district approved for the Blockbuster project's 2,500 acres, located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

"Not since Disney World breezed into the state in the 1970s has the legislature rolled over and agreed to give such power to a private developer," associate editor Lucy Morgan wrote in the St. Petersburg Times.

Final hurdles

The bill authorizing the district is awaiting Gov. Lawton M. Chiles Jr.'s signature. Before the project can proceed, the city of Miramar and Broward and Dade counties must pass similar legislation, authorizing a special district in their locales. The project also must win approval of a host of federal, state and local permits to begin construction.

Nicknamed "Wayne's World," the park evolved from a plan to build a 20,000-seat arena for the Florida Panthers hockey team. The Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., the spinoff from Mr. Huizenga's video conglomerate that will develop the complex, has amassed 1,800 acres of the 2,500-acre site at a cost of $35 million, a spokeswoman said.

"We would like to be able to attract some of the 17 million tourists that come through South Florida every year and [get them] to stay an extra night . . . because there is a destination here where they can spend an extra day, maybe spend the night and watch a baseball game and then go on to their cruise," said Tony Romero, vice president of communications and marketing for Blockbuster.

"This is not a gated community. You don't buy a ticket for the day. This is very much an open park with an awful lot of greenery."

To build the stadiums, park facilities and infrastructure, Blockbuster wanted the authority to sell tax-exempt bonds to finance construction. It also saw the need for a streamlined development process because the parcel straddles three local jurisdictions. They sought the special district as Disney had successfully done two decades before.

In approving the district for Blockbuster, legislators were "trying to be user friendly without bankrupting the state," said state Rep. Steve Geller, who sponsored the bill.

Not everyone saw it that way.

"This is kind of like the ultimate public-private partnership," said state Sen. Jim Boczar, of Sarasota. "We took all the powers of the public and gave them to a private entity."

Mr. Boczar questioned whether the state got the best deal it could.

"If you don't bid, you don't know if you got the best deal," said Mr. Boczar, who added, "[Maryland developer] Jim Rouse would give me a couple of his grandkids for this."

Special districts

In Florida, however, the concept of a special district is not new.

Here, where neighborhoods have arisen from a hodgepodge of development, communities have used the special district mechanism as a way to raise money for a variety of purposes, LTC ranging from mosquito control to neighborhood development. The granddaddy of the special districts is in fact the 27,000 acres that comprises Disney World.

The Blockbuster district received no greater powers than a local government, according to Gale Sittig, an aide to Governor Chiles who oversaw the special district legislation.

"In this day when jobs are hard to come by, economic development projects like this are things every state is chomping at the bit to have," said Ms. Sittig. "So it's hard not to say, 'Why not make it a little easier for them?' "

There is oversight built into the bill, she said. The board of supervisors governing the Blockbuster district will have to hold public hearings on its budgets. Its books must be audited. The district will have to contract with one of the two counties or the city of Miramar for police and fire services, water and treatment of wastewater.

When residents of neighboring communities worried that spinoff development from the park would resemble the haphazard-looking businesses surrounding the pristine enclave of Disney World, a doughnut-like perimeter around the park to curtail development was built into the plan.

The company will have to pay taxes on property it owns within the district -- though not all of it. In Florida, the proposed baseball stadium and hockey arena would be considered government entities and thus exempt from taxes, said Ms. Sittig.

And, Ms. Sittig said, there are penalties in the legislation if Blockbuster were to build a profit-making venture inside the park and sell it to a private entity for less than fair market value.

"Then they would have to repay the state all the tax benefits that had accrued in the name of the district, plus 1 percent interest a month. So we have a pretty major deterrent in there to protect against them abusing the district," she said.

It's too early to know how much public money will go into the project, although Blockbuster has asked for $43 million in federal road improvements to Interstate 75.

"I understand there are a lot of environmentalists who prefer the state didn't make it easier for them to develop this, but that is not giving away the store," said Ms. Sittig. "We haven't approved the project. What the legislature approved was the foundation to allow the project to go forward through a lot of other

procedures."

Environmental impact

Once the Blockbuster bill is signed into law, a series of state analyses and reports will be completed on the project. Among the key areas of review will be the project's impact on the environment. The governor's office and other agencies already have received hundreds of letters in opposition to the project because of its possible effect on the Everglades. The Blockbuster parcel is four miles east of a water conservation area of the Glades, which has been battered by years of development and farming.

"It's a Pandora's box in an environmentally sensitive area," Patti Webster, executive director of the Environmental Coalition of Broward County, said of the Blockbuster project.

Others would object to that characterization. The largest chunk of the parcel is located in Broward County, smack in the middle of South Florida sprawl. A portion of the parcel already has been approved for the development of 4,000 homes.

Since the creation of Disney World, environmental regulations for developments have gotten tougher. And Blockbuster has received no exemptions from those rules.

"As they develop their different phases, they have to meet all of the environmental regulations and permitting that would be imposed on anybody else in the state," said Ms. Sittig, of the governor's office. "If they don't get permits, they don't get

permits and it ends."

Without a detailed development proposal from Blockbuster, no one can fully evaluate the environmentalists' concerns about the project's impact. State and federal agencies charged with doing just that kind of analysis can't act until permit applications are filed.

"It's common knowledge South Florida is a stressed area with respect to open space and the impact to the environment," said Dan Stengle, a lawyer with the state Department of Community Affairs, one of several state agencies that will review the Blockbuster project. "What the state does is try to ensure that those problems aren't exacerbated by development approvals."