Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” played Monday night as residents and city councilors watched images of children splashing through water fountains and fireworks shooting off at carnivals.

The music and images were a part of the pitch for what could be the state’s largest mixed-use development – a retail, entertainment and recreational center proposed for a site between Stroudwater Street and the Westbrook Arterial.

When the music stopped, however, the grand plans drew little response from the audience.

“We’re still trying to absorb it,” Eileen Shutts of Monroe Avenue, who was at the meeting, said Wednesday.

Landowner Jason Snyder brought his team of high-profile, out-of-state architects and developers to present their plan to the City Council Monday. Although the 1.65 million square-foot project is highly conceptual, Snyder hasn’t been shy about naming high-end department stores Bloomingdale’s and Nordstorm’s as possible tenants or playing up the project’s potential boon to the local and state economy through its contribution to the tax base and the creation of some 4,000 permanent jobs.

At the meeting, City Council President Brendan Rielly tried to get city staff to give a sense of the scope of the project by comparing it to another development in the state, but they couldn’t come up with anything.

Earlier in the meeting, architect Jane Thompson had said, “It’s not a take off on anything else.”

One logical comparison emerged – the Maine Mall, which is just over 1 million square feet – but Snyder’s team was quick to back away from it. With amenities like a farmer’s market, recreation areas, an entertainment center and an open-air concert venue, this project is not a retail center. It’s a destination, they said.

“It’s a regional development” that happens to be being built in Westbrook, said Snyder.

The plan has elicited a lot of questions about whether the economic climate of both the state and the country would support such a project, but to Snyder, it’s the perfect time. The project would be built in three phases, the first with a projected opening date in 2011. After all, he said, the same kind of talk surrounded the building of Rockefeller Center.

The comparison between the project – tentatively called Stroudwater Place – and the New York City landmark, isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem, according to the people behind it, and they would know.

Snyder’s partner, Arthur Emil, is a New York businessman, who owned Windows on the World, the restaurant that sat atop the World Trade Center, and the world-famous Rainbow Room. Snyder and Emil met six years ago in New York, when Emil became Snyder’s lawyer and friend.

The project’s architect, Jane Thompson of Thompson Design Group of Boston, was behind Boston’s Fanueil Hall, Washington D.C.’s Union Station and Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Proposing Stroudwater Place as the next among the impressive list of projects in the country’s major metropolises has left people wondering, “Why Westbrook?”

Though Thompson Design has only been working on the project for six months, according to Snyder, it’s been in the works for nearly 50 years. When Snyder’s father, Arthur Snyder, bought the Stroudwater property in 1959, he “had a sense” Westbrook would one day have its own turnpike exit and be the next place, outside of Portland, for major development.

“Everybody thought he was crazy for coming out here,” Jason Snyder said Tuesday.

In the 1970s, Arthur Snyder was one of the developers behind the revitilization of Portland’s Old Port, where he bought run-down buildings and refurbished them into apartments, offices and shops.

According to Jason Snyder, his property’s close proximity to both the turnpike and the airport will easily attract people from in and out of state.

While some say it’s too early to criticize or praise the project, there’s no doubt it’s on the minds of some area residents.

Deb Rumery, who lives across the street from the Snyders, said Tuesday she watched from her window as cars drove by to check out the property.

“I bet nine out of 10 were thinking, ‘We’ll be very sorry to lose this,'” she said about the farmland.

As one of the main commuter passages between Portland and Westbrook, Stroudwater Street handles about 10,000 cars a day. Yet, it’s remained a rural route, where cows and horses can be spotted along the road.

But Stroudwater Street is already changing. Recently, traffic has been backed up by the construction of a new sidewalk. Even when that’s completed, the building crews won’t be far. The construction of the new middle school will keep them there through 2010. A senior housing complex planned for the property adjacent to the Animal Refuge League has been delayed due to the declining housing market, but developers recently assured the city that they still have every intention of building there.

When Deb and John Rumery bought their Stroudwater Street home about 18 years ago, they knew their neighbors would eventually develop their land, but Snyder’s proposal was not what they expected.

“It’s Disneyworld,” John Rumery said. “It’s way too big for the area.”

Despite residents’ concerns, City Hall staff is sharing in the excitement of Snyder and his team.

“I think it’s a pretty remarkable project,” said Erik Carson, the city’s director of economic and community development.

According to Mayor Bruce Chuluda, the benefits the project would provide in taxes and jobs “makes it such that we really need to find a way to make this happen.”

“This has great potential for the city and for the greater Portland area,” he said Tuesday.

Some city councilors, however, are a little more cautious about the project’s feasibility.

The property is zoned for business and professional office use. Snyder applied Monday for a contract zone. City Planner Molly Just said she intends to schedule the project for the Planning Board’s April 1 meeting.

According to Councilor Drew Gattine, the purpose of a contract zone is to allow the city to put restrictions on a development. Usually, Gattine said, the developer will come to the council for guidance before applying for a contract zone.

“There are a lot of questions,” Gattine said. “I’m anxious to have the conversation.”

Gattine said he believes in “data-driven decisions,” and will look to market studies to show whether the project is economically viable.

Rielly agrees that “the cold, hard numbers” will have to be looked at.

“It’s always exciting when someone expresses an interest in coming to my home town,” Rielly said. “You have to be ready to try something new, but you have to have a healthy skepticism.”

According to Rielly, the worst-case scenario would be to start the project and get people’s hopes up, only to have it fail.

But as Synder stood outside his property Tuesday, in brief break between meetings, phone calls and press conferences, he couldn’t imagine his project failing.

“It won’t,” he said.