Bass Pro Shops plans to drop anchor in Washington County and reel in millions of customers who want to spend their time, not to mention money, in ways as expansive and diverse as the 210-acre lot and $287 million project they call "the outdoor campus."

Buy gear in the 250,000-square-foot store? Grab a bite in the themed restaurant? Hold a meeting at the convention center? Luxuriate at the spa? Stay a night in their 200-room hotel or cabins?

It's all there, part of the inaugural, sprawling development unveiled yesterday at a news conference by officials of both the Missouri-based corporation and Washington County. The store, lodge and rest, something company spokesman Martin McDonald termed an "outdoor, interactive, destination mecca," is planned for a parcel off Interstate 79, next to the Tanger Factory Outlet Center proposed for construction across Race Track Road from The Meadows race track and, coming sometime soon, casino.

Bass Pro Shops, with 70 million shoppers annually in 27 U.S. stores and six more set to open this year, isn't fully committing to the deal just yet, though.

Company representatives unveiled their plans and tried to answer citizens' questions at a meeting last night with South Strabane Township, Trinity School District and Washington County officials over Tax Increment Financing. The April announcement of the Tanger project and preliminary talk of the Bass Pro Shops proposal previously raised some doubts among the local populace, some of whom formed Citizens Against Tax Increment Financing.

Mike Dunham, the director of real estate for Bass Pro Shops of Springfield, Mo., said his company seeks a bond issue that represents 3 percent of the total project cost -- or roughly $8.5 million. That tax-increment financing, which devotes the development's future property taxes to its current infrastructure costs, would be used to complete such project tasks as constructing an I-79 exit and widening Manifold Road to "the outdoor campus."

"If this TIF doesn't happen, that could put a completely different [end] result to our financial model," Dunham said. "And that could prevent this whole deal."

Nowhere else has Bass Pro Shops built such an edifice, officials said. They have a store in a Harrisburg mall and stand-alone shops across the country, the other closest outlets being Cincinnati and Baltimore. Yet a three-story shop topped by an atrium and three to four more stories of an Adirondack-style lodge, with a separate, hillside entrance?

"Our company has a dream," said McDonald, the spokesman. "This is our dream."

The project -- Bass Pro Shops' most expensive yet -- also would include a conference center and spa, cabins, a shopping center, indoor-outdoor shooting and archery ranges, a golf-practice facility, an ATV test track, a nature park and conservation workshops.

Washington County Commissioner Bracken Burns said the project would bring 2,000 construction jobs, 1,600 employees and throngs of customers who spend $188 on an average trip through a Bass Pro Shop. Then again, 43 percent of those customers stay overnight near such a shop.

"I believe they will come in the millions, from what I'm being told," Burns said. "That's real money coming into Washington County." As for the influx of employment, he added, "When was the last time 1,600 jobs rolled into Washington County ... or any [southwestern Pennsylvania] county?"

Dunham said Bass Pro Shops wanted to locate in the Pittsburgh area because of the high number of hunting, fishing and boating licenses sold annually in Allegheny County -- making it one of the nine leading U.S. counties in those outdoors-recreation categories. Throw in Washington County's high per-capita percentages in those areas, and that made the burgeoning I-79 site -- barely a mile north of its I-70 intersection -- a natural pick, Dunham added.

It also didn't hurt that competitor Cabela's is located down I-70 outside Wheeling, W.Va.

"I hope the guys here are excited, now they won't have to spend their money out of state," Dunham said. "Will have to drive 25 miles less, too."

Should Bass Pro Shops receive the infrastructure bond -- and Beaver County officials attended yesterday's news conference with an eye toward luring away the project -- the company could open the new store and lodge in 2007, then the cabins, restaurant and rest in 2008.