Boon to Fisherman’s Wharf, or Schlock by the Dock?

To its detractors, the sprawling waterfront project brings a soulless Las Vegas-style mimicry to an already-garish Fisherman’s Wharf.

Critics say the commercial entertainment complex slated for Pier 45 is tailor-made for tourists too hurried to see the real San Francisco.

With attractions such as a model Golden Gate Bridge, blankets of fake fog, a faux earthquake and a theme park knock-off of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, it would be a schlocky one-stop sightseeing destination, they say.

“Las Vegas is the perfect place for something like this,” said Supervisor Mark Leno, who recently helped place a ballot initiative to kill the project. “But why San Francisco? I mean, look around. You’ve got the original right there in front of your eyes.”

Proponents of the San Francisco Interactive History Museum insist that their $30.7-million project is a first-class museum and entertainment complex that will appeal to vacationers while luring local San Franciscans back to a lusterless wharf long written off as a tacky tourist playground.

Milton Maltz, chairman of the Cleveland-based Malrite company, which is developing the project, says he is tired of seeing his artistic vision tarnished by what he calls provincial politicians and good old boys.

“We’ve been denigrated and vilified over their fear of competition,” he said. “These people have distorted our proposal into something obscene. They consider politics a sport and we became the football.”

Welcome to the port development debate billed as a battle over the very soul of San Francisco. At stake is whether the city will eventually accept Malrite’s glitzy commercial entertainment venture financed by deep-pocketed out-of-towners with East Coast pedigrees or a more politically palatable nonprofit museum proposed by locals that’s still in search of financial backing.

Maltz won approval last month from the Port Commission to enter into negotiations with the city for his museum idea. But four supervisors favoring the Bay Center project--initiated by a coalition of Fisherman’s Wharf business leaders, fishing and environmental groups--weren’t happy.

Led by Leno and Supervisor Gavin Newsom, they moved to take the issue to San Francisco voters, launching a November ballot initiative that calls for port commissioners to switch support from Malrite to the local proposal.

But Maltz fought back. He hired new lobbyists, dropped the project’s former name--San Francisco at the Wharf--and flew to town to rally support. His new campaign brochure, designed to dispel project myths, begins: “Allow us to introduce ourselves . . . again.”

This week, in a move hailed by Malrite supporters, the Board of Supervisors tabled a motion by Newsom and others calling for port commissioners to slow down their negotiations with Maltz.

But Bay Center advocates aren’t waving any white flags.

“Our project is more attractive to locals,” said Chris Martin, co-chairman of the coalition supporting the Bay Center and managing partner of the wharf’s Cannery shopping mall. “This is one way to begin giving the wharf back to San Franciscans.”

Once the center of a bustling Bay Area fishing industry, the wharf--in particular its centerpiece, Pier 39--has been dismissed by San Franciscans as the tourist-trap domain of street hawkers peddling cable car paperweights and cheap coral bracelets to families from Alabama and Wisconsin.

Built in 1915 to unload bulk cargo, Pier 45 is Northern California’s largest commercial fish processing center. In the 1970s, city officials began considering developing unused parts of the 11-acre pier, including housing projects and hotels.

But Proposition A, passed by local voters in 1990, requires the port commission to ensure that any future wharf development includes a strong maritime component.

His project, Martin says, would help preserve the city’s proud maritime history. Its 37,000 square feet of museum space also would feature exhibits on the San Francisco Bay’s ecology and the effects of years of environmental damage. There would be seminars for locals and classrooms where fishermen could get technical training.

Although he acknowledged that his coalition needs 18 months to raise money for the $36.2-million project, Martin said port commissioners should still consider Bay Center as an alternative to the Malrite proposal.

“It’s a simple choice between a conservation theme and a thrill ride delivered by high-paid lobbyists,” he said. “Our plan is the responsible solution. The economics work. We can raise that money.”

Maltz says his 35,000-square-foot museum also considers San Francisco’s maritime history--but with a unique vision.

His project is led by Dennis Barrie, a former Smithsonian Institution curator and founding director of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The designer has been a principal consultant to the Smithsonian.

“We’re museum people, entertainment people, storytellers, cultural historians,” Maltz said. “We’d never pander to anything so gross as what they’re saying. But I’m still getting clubbed by these people.”

While acknowledging that his museum would feature a fake earthquake, Maltz said the exhibit would include real film from San Francisco’s 1906 quake from the archives at the Library of Congress.

The interactive display also would include a $1-million replica of the city, circa 1906, as well as a model of what it looks like today.

In the Haight-Ashbury exhibit, Maltz said, a tram shaped like singer Janis Joplin’s Volkswagen would move visitors through the sights and sounds of 1960s Haight-Ashbury, from the music of Pink Floyd to Jefferson Airplane, whose music was rooted in San Francisco.

And what about that faux fog?

Maltz said blasts of fog would provide a segue between parts of a historical display, like a curtain falling between scenes of a play.

“I told them ‘If you don’t like the fog, we’ll eliminate it, if bothers your sensitivity so much,’ ” he said of the supervisors. “I’ve done my homework, I’ve got three PhDs working for me, and they’re still calling me grotesque Las Vegas. This is San Francisco history, for heaven sakes.”

Maltz’s supporters range from the nearby wax museum to state librarian Kevin Starr. “Malrite is a quantum leap over what’s going on at the wharf now,” Starr said. “It’s all trinkets and fast food. I mean, what do people do after they buy their Alcatraz T-shirt?

“It’s unfair to characterize this project as schlocky. It’s popular. It’s Fox and Warner Bros. TV, not PBS. But it’s not irresponsible.”

Supervisor Newsom disagrees.

“The way this attraction works, you could see the whole city by taking a cab over to walk around the wharf and still be home in time for dinner,” he quipped. “This is an example of a corrupted process where money buys influence. They’ve spent a virtual fortune on lobbyists. And the effort is sadly paying off.”

Doug Wong, executive director of the Port Commission, said his agency was impressed by the credentials of Maltz’s staff and the size of his bankroll.

“We’re talking about a really successful man here,” he said of Maltz. “We checked his credit with Bank of New York and found he really did have $100 million sitting there. We couldn’t say that about the other outfit.”

Warren Hinckle, a maverick newspaper columnist and local political observer for nearly 40 years, says that in the Malrite battle San Francisco has once again shown its provincial way of thinking.

“This town has a knee-jerk reaction to anything from the outside,” he said. “Malrite is something locals could be proud of. It could help anchor the wharf, cut down on the riffraff quotient.

“But the local boys rallied forces to try and kill it. It’s pathetic, but we’ve seen this same thing happen here again and again.”

Meanwhile, both sides have been lampooned by local editorial pages. One cartoon rendering shows a frowning tourist standing on Pier 45, his T-shirt bearing a takeoff on the popular vacation theme.

“I went to San Francisco,” the shirt reads, “and all I got was this lousy political battle.”