District hosting $300 million in new projects.

The curtain finally appears to be rising on Hollywood's long-awaited revival, as five major commercial projects valued at $300 million are preparing backstage.

Especially noteworthy is that the activity has been broadening. It is no longer focused exclusively in the neighborhood immediately surrounding the renovated Egyptian Theater, where tourists step off buses and major corporations such as Wait Disney Co. and Capitol Records - have a vested stake.

Besides major new developments in that neighborhood, additional projects are about to unfold on the eastern end of Hollywood Boulevard and to the south, near Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.

Hopes for Hollywood's revitalization have been repeatedly raised - then inevitably razed for the past 10 years. But this time, the district is the focus of intense investor interest.

"There's been speculation of a recovery for such a long time, but nothing much seemed to ever happen," said Brad Chelf, vice president of CB Commercial Real Estate Group. "It's going to take one of these projects to come out of the ground and be successful for people to finally believe in Hollywood."

Momentum initially began to build in March, when TrizecHahn Centers announced its ambitious plan to develop a $150 million retail-entertainment project to the east of Mann's Chinese Theatre.

The Toronto-based developer is hammering out a business agreement with the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and does not expect to present its plans to the L.A. City Council until next April. In the meantime, Hollywood is preparing for several smaller tests of investors' faith in the area.

Disney's $6 million renovation of the El Capitan Theater building's 40,000 square feet of office and retail space will be complete next month. The $2-per-square-foot monthly asking rental rate is the most expensive in Hollywood, in a market where the low-$1 range is the norm because many of the buildings are decades old.

But Frank Buckley, managing director at Ramsey-Shilling Co. who is handling leasing for the project, said he's in serious negotiations with two major office tenants.

On the development front, two retail-oriented projects are slated to break ground early next year. The first is the $20 million Hollywood Spectacular, located to the west of the Chinese Theater. That project - which is designed to include a 500-seat, large-screen theater - is almost through the city approval process, said Steve Ullman, one of the principals in the development group Hollywood Orange Land LLC. It is also one of the few privately financed developments going up in the Hollywood redevelopment zone.

The other retail-oriented project is on the eastern end of Hollywood Boulevard near Western Avenue, where developer Ira Smedra has a $40 million grocery-anchored retail center and low-income apartment project winding its way through the approval process. The retail spaces are already leased and the project should break ground early next year, Smedra said.

About two miles west of Smedra's site, a renovation of the 5-year-old Hollywood Galaxy retail-movieplex center is underway. Richard Huelsman, president of MCG Architects, has been hired by Citicorp Real Estate Inc. to turn its 100,000-square-foot center into what Huelsman calls a "main street-style" center.

"It's going to be more playful, animated something that shouts out the glamour and excitement you'd expect to find in Hollywood," he said.

Then there is the activity already in place.

More than $27 million in private funds have been invested in office-building renovations and a new nightclub, the Garden of Eden, at La Brea Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. In addition, 41 property owners along Hollywood Boulevard agreed to assess themselves $600,000 annually for the next five years to pay for street beautification and security improvements.

There's an additional $100 million of Hollywood development in various stages of discussion, consisting of two separate shopping centers proposed for sites near the Sunset and Vine intersection.

"There hasn't been this level of sophistication among investors looking at Hollywood for at least 10 years," said Buckley of Ramsey-Shilling. He said his firm has been meeting with about five private developers a week who are interested in undertaking Hollywood projects. That compares with five such meetings a month last year.

The developers and investors are all hoping to get ahead of the real estate curve, in expectation of rental spikes and property appreciation.

"Developers are realizing that there's still money to be made in Hollywood," Chelf said. "It's too late to get in on the Beverly Hills or Santa Monica retail market. By comparison, Hollywood is a bargain."

Much of the recent excitement was generated by TrizecHahn's unveiling of its then-300,000-square-foot entertainment "destination" development in March. The company no longer uses its original renderings to describe its project, because the project "changes as we talk to more people," said David Malmuth, senior vice president of development for TrizecHahn. He declined to discuss specifics, but said he hopes to "bring back the fashion element that once existed in Hollywood" as well as capitalize on the entertainment cachet of the boulevard.

Malmuth, who engineered the successful renovation of Manhattan's 42nd Street and the rebirth of Times Square when he worked for Disney, is spearheading the revitalization effort.

Malmuth, a Los Angeles native, said he left Disney to pursue his vision of creating a catalyst in Hollywood similar to the New York revival.

"A lot of people see the potential in Hollywood, but it's very thin right now," he said. "When people visit the Mann's Chinese Theatre, it's nowhere near meeting their expectations of what they have in mind when they think of Hollywood."

Since its March announcement, TrizecHahn has been in 180 days of exclusive negotiations with the CRA. Flashes of news have emerged from the discussions. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences said it wants a special theater at the TrizecHahn site to serve as a permanent home for the Academy Awards, and TrizecHahn announced last month that it had purchased the adjacent Holiday Inn hotel on Highland Avenue, which expands its project site by one block.

Two separate developments have been announced since TrizecHahn unveiled its plans.

Pacific Theaters, owner of the Cinerama Dome movie theater and surrounding property, announced plans to build a 15-screen movieplex, retail shops and restaurants around its landmark domed theater on Sunset Boulevard.

Neil Haltrecht, vice president of development for Pacific Theaters, said the 245,000-square-foot project has been in the works for weeks but the company wanted to make sure it was "far along in the process" before it went public with its plans. The project has almost finished its environmental review and should be before the City Council for final approval by next year, Haltrecht said.

The $50 million project was "demand-driven" by local residents, Haltrecht said, noting that the neighboring communities of Los Feliz and Hancock Park are currently underserved by retailers.