They’re sights perhaps more common in tourist areas like Myrtle Beach, S.C., but those Flintstonesque waterfalls and the large pink building off Interstate 95 in Boca Raton are not summery mirages.

By next week, the 12-acre complex just south of the Boca Raton airport may be swarming with thousands of South Floridians checking out one of the more unusual businesses to hit the area in years: Boomer’s Family Recreation Center.

Different from amusement parks featuring mechanical rides or major theme parks featuring million-dollar attractions and hefty admission fees, family entertainment centers focus on a handful of activities such as miniature golf or Indy car racing, all on an “a la carte” basis.

Blockbuster Golf & Games in Sunrise and Grand Prix Race-o-rama in Dania are similar, but Boomer’s executive Joseph Horsfall says the family emphasis is stronger at Boomer’s.

“The owners said, ‘What can I do with my kids?'” Horsfall said. “There’s become a greater and greater demand for a safe place to take your children that’s family-oriented,” he said.

Scheduled to open by this weekend, Boomer’s will feature:

— A 25,000-square-foot building featuring a kids’ “softplay” jungle gym, a state-of-the-art roller rink, video arcade and snack bar.

— Two 18-hole miniature golf courses.

— A pond with remote-controlled model boats.

— Another pond featuring 12 bumper boats.

— An “Indy” race track.

— Birthday rooms available for party packages priced from $8 to $20 a child.

— No admission charge, with prices ranging from about $3 to $6 for each activity.

Mark McKeever, 34, general manager of the more than $4 million center, describes it as a “multiattraction theme park, with an Australian theme.”

The park by any other theme, however, would smell as sweet.

“They should show a net operating profit their first year, no problem,” said Joey Herd of Birmingham, Ala., president of the fledgling International Family Entertainment Center Association, a trade group working on behalf of such centers nationwide.

“These facilities are probably the fastest-growing facilities within the leisure-time attraction industry,” said Tim O’Brien, southeast editor of Amusement Business, a Nashville, Tenn.-based trade publication for the live entertainment industry.

After paying about $30 a ticket to get into Disney World, for example, people feel compelled to spend a full day to get their money’s worth, he said.

That’s not the case at family entertainment centers, where you pay only for the attractions or games you wish, he said.

“The whole idea of a family entertainment center is that people can pick and choose how much money they’re going to spend and how much time they’re going to spend,” O’Brien said.

Herd said that the concept of family entertainment centers actually began about 30 years ago with the spread of miniature golf courses across the country.

Within the past 10 to 15 years, he said, more complexes featuring miniature golf have added other attractions such as Indy tracks and batting cages.

He said family entertainment centers are generally characterized by their small size – 80 percent are on 5 acres or less – and their offering of several of the following components, which he calls “the fab five”:

— miniature golf

— Go Karts or Indy cars

— bumper boats

— a game room/video arcade

— batting cages O’Brien estimates that there are about 2,000 family entertainment centers nationwide, many of which have sprung up only in the past three or four years. They are part of an amusement/theme park industry that generates about $6 billion a year, he said.

McKeever said the name Boomer’s, by the way, has nothing to do with Baby Boomers and is simply a play on BOOM, the acronym formed from the original partners’ last names.

They are Joseph Ballarini, a Boca Raton businessman; P.J. Orthwein and James Orthwein Jr., who own Double Eagle Distributing, an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Deerfield Beach; and Bob Mullin, also a local business man.

Ballarini has since been bought out by the other partners.

“These things are all over the place,” McKeever says of Boomer’s. “In South Carolina, these things are on every street corner.”

Future plans call for the installation of batting cages, a lap track for Indy cars, and a carousel and small railroad designed for small children.

Boomer’s will employ about 60.