Hollywood icon preserved even as movies moved into multiplex age.

When the Cinerama Dome was opened by the Pacific Theaters in 1963, it seemed like a glimpse of the future.

Its geodesic dome of 316 hexagons and ultra-wide Panavision screen made it look like a place where Buck Rogers might have docked his spaceship. The first film, the slapstick comedy "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," ran for nearly a year.

Of course, that was four decades ago. The future, it turned out, involved multiplexes and runs that measure in weeks.

"It was an event to come to the geodesic dome and it was an event to go to the theater," said John Manavian, vice president of real estate for the Robertson Properties Group, which redeveloped the site.

When Robertson bought the theater in the late 1990s. the Dome no longer attracted the crowds it once did, but the development firm saw all sorts of possibilities at the site and ultimately embarked on a $60 million adaptive reuse project.

"We had to come up with a clever way to bring people into the theater and preserve the theater and give it a plaza feel," Manavian said.

The solution? Restore the dome and build a retail and upscale multiplex around it. The result was the ArcLight cinema, which featured unheard of reserved seating and a cafe bar when it opened in 2002. The 14 cinemas screen most major Hollywood releases as well as a crop of independent films.

The new theaters also attracted dozens of other tenants, such as a culinary school, a 24-hour fitness center and several high-end restaurants. It's now called the Cinerama Dome Entertainment Center.

"It has meant a number of things," said Kip Rudd, Senior Planner for Hollywood for the Community Redevelopment Agency. "We have six movie palaces. This was the fifth that was brought back to life."

The original refurbished Cinerama Dome still looms large over the entire complex. The Dome's unique size, shape and history allow for technical differences from the newer ArcLight cinemas.

The smaller cinemas have the latest sound equipment, but the Dome is equipped for 70 millimeter films. Its sound system features 44 surround sound speakers where previously there were eight. And the deeply curved, 126 degree original screen has been replaced but left in its original shape and size--all 32-by-86-feet of it.

Manavian said the Robertson Group probably could not have completed the project if not for the tremendous support received by the Community Redevelopment Agency and city officials.

"It was like any city process. We had to go through environmental impact reports and traffic studies. The mindset was that we wanted to do it for the local community," he said.

PROJECT

Cinerama Dome

6360 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

Developer: Robertson Properties Group

Building: Geodesic dome theater with ultra wide screen and more than 900 seats. Completed in 1963, remained a premier venue into the 1980s.

Project: Expansion into an entertainment center with t4 multiplex screens--with reserved seating--and a variety of shops in 218,000 square feet of retail space. The $60 million project included a refurbishment of the original theater with new seating, screen, sound system and other improvements.