DreamWorks Trio Unveil Site

Where Howard Hughes once tread, now comes Steven Spielberg and company.

That bit of symbolism was as vivid as a Hollywood sunset Wednesday in the vast aircraft hangar where, half a century ago, Hughes built his fabled Spruce Goose. With that relic now packed off to a museum in Dayton, Ore., and the aerospace industry still reeling like one of Jurassic Park’s ill-fated tyrannosaurs, Spielberg took over the dim, dank and drafty hangar and proclaimed it home to the future of movie making.

“This was so ideal it was almost meant to be,” Spielberg said during a ceremonial unveiling of the proposed new DreamWorks SKG studio complex at Playa Vista, a high-tech entertainment center expected to break ground in June. “There must be some kind of karmic relevance to the fact that we are here in a hangar that Howard Hughes built to bring his dreams to life.”

So far, the location is several flights of fancy from inspiring awe. There are rutted asphalt lots and drab industrial buildings. The hangar itself is mundane--a cavernous shell of blue corrugated metal containing scratched concrete floors, air ducts encased in silvery insulation and a vaulted ceiling held up by rows of steel beams.

But DreamWorks SKG--the highly touted partnership formed last year by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen--has big plans for the site. Within three years, DreamWorks expects to invest $200 million in creating a high-tech center bringing fiber optics and state-of-the-art computer technology to filmmaking.

The DreamWorks studios, built around an eight-acre lake, will form the anchor for a $750-million, 100-acre campus of studio facilities. And that complex, in about 10 years, will be part of a small town of more than 1,000 acres that will house 30,000 people and contain, among other things, more than 5 million square feet of office space. The massive project is being developed by Maguire Thomas and the Hughes Corp. on oceanfront land north of Los Angeles International Airport.

A day after the Los Angeles City Council gave its conceptual approval to the plan, the three moguls took to a makeshift stage Wednesday, dwarfed by the size of the hangar and, illuminated by portable spotlights, pronounced their faith in the high-tech future of Hollywood.

Joining them were about 600 guests, from TV news crews and reporters to prospective tenants, film agents and political figures.

“It’s the biggest business win that any city has ever had,” Mayor Richard Riordan gushed, before a luncheon that included smoked salmon and pasta salad. “It sends a message to the rest of the world that Los Angeles is back.”

Gov. Pete Wilson was equally effusive, alluding to the DreamWorks triumvirate as the “Three Wise Men” and adding, “To say I’m pleased and proud would be a terrible understatement. I’m excited as hell.”

Wilson made it clear that the entertainment industry represents important hope to a state hard hit by cuts in the aerospace and defense industries.

“In my prior incarnation as a mayor [of San Diego], I would have sold my family to get a project like this. . . . Unlike Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, this one’s going to fly and soar for a long time.”

Not every observer was so enthusiastic. About a dozen protesters, standing in a light rain outside the Playa Vista gates, held picket signs saying, “DreamWorks Wake Up,” and “Spielberg Phone Home 2 Stop This Project.”

Marcia Hanscom, representing a group called Citizens United to Save All of Ballona, said more than 25 environmental groups have voiced opposition to the project, including Greenpeace L.A., the UCLA Environmental Coalition and the Rainforest Action Network.

Those groups are fearful that the development will create substantial additional traffic in an area already badly congested and threaten sensitive wetlands nesting sites, despite a pledge by developers to restore the Ballona Wetlands.

Those concerns seemed far from the minds of those with embossed credentials in the hangar, where a number of prospective tenants wondered more about what the rental rates might be.

George Clooney, star of television’s “ER,” met briefly with Spielberg, having recently made a deal to appear in one of the director’s films. Clooney said it was his day off, and so “I thought I’d come over and see where I’d be coming to work every day.”