SCARBOROUGH – Southern Maine has been hearing the mantra for the past two years.

“World’s foremost outfitter of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear … destination retail superstore.”

Indeed, a glimpse Wednesday inside the new Cabela’s store on Haigis Parkway revealed a 125,000-square-foot building packed with inventory, taxidermy displays and other features to make zealous sportsmen and curious shoppers bow down and worship at the golden calf of retail sporting goods.

Cabela’s pitch has been relentless: It will attract millions of people to the state every year, it will become a top tourist attraction, it will help generate millions of dollars for other Maine businesses.

But will the store live up to the hype?

Some critics don’t think it can – if only because as Cabela’s opens more stores, its draw as a tourist attraction will diminish and the number of visitors will decline.

The Cabela’s closest to Maine, and the first in New England, is in East Hartford, Conn. There was talk of opening another store in Hookset, N.H., but that project is on hold. Although the company has decided to cut back in 2008 and open just two stores, in Scarborough and in Rapid City, S.D., it stated in its 2007 annual report to shareholders that its intent is to continue to grow.

“If we cannot successfully implement our retail store expansion strategy, our growth and profitability would be adversely impacted,” the report said. “We continue to actively seek additional locations to open new retail stores.”

“Cabela’s has plans to open stores all across the country,” Stacy Mitchell, a Portland resident and author of “Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses,” said Wednesday. “Their goal is to saturate the market so they’re a short distance from everyone.”

Mitchell also doubts Cabela’s claims about its ability to boost retail sales in Maine.

There is “no indication that Maine needs this kind of growth,” she said. “Other (stores) will scale back. People don’t have more money to spend just because someone opens a new store.”

But Harvey Rosenfeld, Scarborough Economic Development Corp. president, said he thinks Cabela’s will bring people and their dollars to businesses all over the area – even to competitors like L.L. Bean and Kittery Trading Post. He also said the jobs created by the retailer are important to Maine’s economy.

Daniel Whitcher, Cabela’s store manager, Wednesday said he has already hired 300 people, mostly local, from more than 1,300 applicants. “We have 700 to 800 more applications we haven’t even looked at yet,” he said.

Rosenfeld said he’d been told by a Cabela’s employee that more school children make field trips to one of the company’s retail stores in Texas than they do to the Alamo – an anecdote that bolsters the company’s claim that Cabela’s is more than just a place to shop.

But while an aquarium, dioramas and a “Conservation Mountain” – with its taxidermy animals, a waterfall and a trout pond – are striking and unexpected in a store, the critics say a school field trip to Cabela’s is like taking students to a mall.

In his book, “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill),” David Cay Johnston, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, said Cabela’s has set up at least some of its stores’ pseudo-museums as nonprofits, freeing them of the burden of paying any property taxes on those portions of the buildings.

As to Cabela’s’ claim that each store attracts millions of tourists every year, Johnston said it is like “believing that a sporting goods store could be as big a draw as Universal Studios in Orlando … with enough rides and shows to keep a family occupied for several days.”

Johnston also devotes one chapter to what he calls the brazen way Cabela’s has manipulated town officials, taken government money to finance its sporting goods empire and put smaller sporting goods stores out of business.

Mitchell noted that last summer – too late to have an impact on Cabela’s – Maine enacted the Informed Growth Act, which requires an independent impact analysis on all proposed stores larger than 75,000 square feet. A town may only approve this type of project if the study shows the store would not be a detriment to the local economy.

“What’s been happening is these developments come along and … make all sorts of assertions about what they will bring, and there’s no way to verify it’s true and no way to verify costs,” she said. “Scarborough residents will be shouldering all sorts of new public service costs; there was never a point at which there was any comprehensive look.”

Although the Scarborough store became a reality, and will open just off Exit 42 of the Maine Turnpike at 5 p.m. Thursday, May 15, Cabela’s almost turned tail and headed for the hills of New Hampshire because of a disagreement with the state on sales tax.

Cabela’s initially said it would not come to Maine if it had to collect sales tax on catalog and Internet sales in the state, arguing those divisions are separate entities from its retail stores.

As L.L. Bean and other retailers cried foul, many legislators and public officials acted quickly to try to resolve the issue. Just when it appeared the company was ready to relocate, it suddenly and mysteriously withdrew its request for the exemption.

Not only did the retailer fail to get its way on sales tax, it also failed to receive the usual subsidies provided by other towns. Instead, Scarborough offered $8.25 million in tax increment financing to New England Expeditions for development of the 70-acre site on both sides of Payne Road.

“The developer has some arrangement with Cabela’s,” Town Manager Ron Owens said Wednesday. “We’re not getting into the details of how they use the money.”

Once $55 million in development is reached, the developer is entitled to get back up to $825,000 a year in taxes over 10 years.

The town also included a provision in the contract for its protection should Cabela’s decide not to continue leasing the building. If that were to happen, the developer would be required to receive approval from the council for any new business interested in using the space.