He gets things done around this town: land-use attorney George Mihlsten shepherds the hot projects through government mazes.

Back in the late 1960s, while his peers were tuning into Jimi Hendrix and the fury of Vietnam, George Mihlsten was "dropping out," so bored with his Texas high school that he left in his junior year to traipse across two continents in search of adventure, odd jobs and beer money.

It wasn't exactly an Ivy League start for a man now considered one of Southern California's hottest land-use attorneys -- at the ripe age of 38.

"To think in the '60s, I was the only Jewish-Republican-hippie in the United States who didn't do drugs," chortles the Manhattan Beach resident, whose knack for getting development projects through City Hall is belied by his low-key, self-effacing persona. "But I learned a lot in my travels, mainly that I care about people. How cliche does that sound?"

Since "wandering to L.A." in the early 1970s, the Houston native has been anything but a Southern-boy underachiever. Working his way through USC, Mihlsten got his undergraduate and joint law-MBA degrees in just six years. From there he rose quickly to become a partner at Los Angeles' consummate old-line law firm: Latham & Watkins.

With his slight paunch, greying beard and semi-wrinkled mien, Mihlsten hardly fits the Hollywood mold of the slick-talking, well-coiffed hired gun who "does" nouveau riche lunches with city brass. But looks, a weakness for rockers ZZ Top and Van Halen, and a measured speaking style can be deceptive, especially for a guy considered to be a rising star in a business establishment desperate for new blood and ideas.

Among his other triumphs, Mihlsten was credited as the driving force that got Central City West, the 465-acre "mini-city" planned for west of downtown Los Angeles, OK'd by the City Council last year. Despite protests from community leaders and politicians worried that the gargantuan project would swamp the already congested Harbor (110) Freeway, the project sailed through the council on an 11-2 vote.

But it didn't come on the cheap. Central City West's small army of developers, six of them represented by Latham & Watkins, agreed to pay $500 million for traffic upgrades and more than $200 million for affordable housing, one of the richest mitigation packages in U.S. history.

"What we've tried to do, including at Central City West, is to fundamentally change the historic approach to land use in this city, of just getting eight council votes. That's what I'm proudest of," says Mihlsten, who earns an undisclosed "six-figure" salary and lives in a four-bedroom home with his wife and two young children. "You've got to address a wide range of concerns or prepare to spend four to five years in court getting litigated."

To avoid lawsuits and harness homeowners backing in an age of slow-growth initiatives, Mihlsten & Co. act as "project quarterbacks," packaging teams for clients that mock the bygone days when an architect and a unionized construction outfit was the requisite for securing a building permit. Erecting big commercial office projects in modern-day L.A. takes real estate attorneys, community relations' types, political consultants, environmental impact mavens and, of course, well-connected lobbyists.

Sometimes, though, even the best and the brightest can't make a scheme pencil out, as Mihlsten learned when he was helping Walt Disney Co. choose between Long Beach and Anaheim as the site of its new $3 billion theme park. "Long Beach just didn't make sense," he explains. "It would take five to six years and $70 million to $100 million to secure the tons of approvals. And then we'd end up getting sued by someone."

According to those who have watched his evolution, Mihlsten's greatest strength is his ability to listen. Then there is his ability to shepherd builders through the fiefdoms of the city and county bureaucracies, which is what has put him in the elite league of land-use czars like Art Snyder, Dan Garcia and Doug Ring.

"The political fabric is much more difficult to deal with than the technical side of development," he says, glancing out his office window tucked inside Los Angeles' tallest skyscraper, the First Interstate World Center. "You have to work your way through the maze of competing agendas in the Mayor's Office and in the council. . . . Let's just say they (the priorities) don't always mesh with the community or the developer."

The Hollywood Promenade, a $300 million mixed-use project that Indianapolis builder Melvin Simon wanted to construct around Mann's Chinese Theatre, was an example of that. When it was first proposed in the mid-1980s, the glitzy office-hotel development had the support of the area's councilman and key members of the city's Planning Department. But community lawsuits challenging the Promenade's environmental impact report bogged down Simon and his legal gun, Mihlsten, for years. Now that the Promenade's EIR has court approval, Simon's financing problems have become so acute the project needs a $48 million public bailout.

Because the Promenade's subsidy hasn't been approved, Mihlsten, a registered city lobbyist, won't discuss it, saying only that "Hollywood needs new economic development and assistance to help it redefine its focus."

Meanwhile, Mihlsten's contemporaries say his focus is on target.

"The strength of a lobbyist is their credibility and dependability and George has that, says Westside Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. "And in terms of being a problem-solver, he's as good as they come."

Real estate lawyer O'Malley Miller, who's known Mihlsten for 15 years, calls him "a terrific lawyer" with a nose for "compromise and wise choices." His only negative attribute, says Miller, is that he's usually "10 minutes late for meetings because he's so busy."

Mihlsten says he intends to pare his 7 a.m.-9 p.m. workday when things cool down. Perhaps one reason his schedule is so frenzied -- as the mountain of reports, phone messages and blueprints on his desk attest -- is that he sits on a bevy of civic boards, where the art of concession is vital.

Indeed, Mihlsten generated notice for himself four years ago when, as a member of the Los Angeles Housing Council, he fashioned a compromise that gave apartment landlords the right to raise rents to market rates, but only when the old tenants moved out.

While Mihlsten's City Hall ties and process-oriented acumen make him a commodity in demand, it sometimes gets him in hot water with activists, though not to the same extent as higher-profile lawyer-lobbyists who have run afoul of conflict-of-interest laws.

In 1989, Mihlsten coaxed the Bradley administration to appoint him and another Latham lawyer to a special citizens advisory board. Charged with molding an affordable housing fee that developers would agree to pay, Mihlsten and colleague Lucinda Starrett actually wrote the fee's legislation, according to news reports at the time.

"I honestly don't remember if I tried to get on the board," says Mihlsten. "I'm not trying to be evasive."

Mihlsten downplays the value of political contributions as an influence on legislators. During his years as a lobbyist, pushing for bigger growth limits at the likes of San Fernando Valley's Warner Center, Mihlsten figures he's raised less than $7,000 for elected officials and advises clients not to expect any favors from attending rubber chicken fund-raisers.

But Laura Lake, the vociferous, West Los Angeles development critic, has seen another side of Mihlsten.

"George is affable, civilized and it's always interesting watching a Texas Republican try to do business with Westside liberal Democrats," snaps Lake, who has clashed with Mihlsten on UCLA's plans to expand its campus by 4 million square feet. "But he's very manipulative; he has a tendency to try and solve community concerns by offering the developers' checkbooks. Shaking down the developer to pay specialized fees isn't always what neighborhood groups want."

Though Mihlsten is usually amiable and animated, anger surges when talks turns to the legion of problems facing Los Angeles -- from homeowner opposition to low-income housing to the 43 government permits needed to build in the city.

Sounding almost like a young H. Ross Perot, Mihlsten said a major overhaul of regulations governing everything from air quality to conditional use permits "must" be undertaken if L.A. County is to create jobs needed to accommodate a population growing by 8 million in the next 25 years.

"If we don't create opportunity, and stop business flight and political bickering, I'd ask the last person out of L.A. to turn out the lights."

SNAPSHOT

George Jeffrey Mihlsten

Native of: Houston, Texas

Current residence: Manhattan Beach

Age: 38

Education: Bachelor of science, business administration, USC, 1977; jurisprudence degree and master of business administration, USC, 1980