Puck eyes catering job at Hollywood project.

Developers of the high-profile Hollywood & Highland retail-entertainment project, who already have attracted a restaurant owned by Quincy Jones, are now in discussions with another prominent L.A. celebrity: Wolfgang Puck.

Puck is negotiating with TrizecHahn to run a catering facility at the complex, which would almost certainly have multimillion-dollar potential for the world-renowned chef and solidify his status as the official caterer lo the Academy Awards.

Barbara Lazaroff, Puck's wife and partner, and TrizecHahn Development President David Malmuth, would only say that the two sides are in discussions.

While a deal has not yet been signed, the expectation is that Puck would have a long-term, exclusive contract to run the catering services at the project's crown jewel; a 30,000-square-foot ballroom that will host the Governor's Ball, the celebrity-studded celebration that follows the Oscars, starting in March 2001. The complex is slated for completion in the fall of 2000.

The theater and ballroom - to be located across from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the site of the first Academy Awards presentation in 1929 - is the centerpiece of the $385 million development, which will include retail shops. restaurants and a hotel. Situated on the fifth floor, the ballroom will have sweeping views of Hollywood Boulevard and the Hollywood sign, Malmuth said. It also will be located .just above the theater where the Academy Awards will be held.

Puck has been catering the Governor's Ball for the past five years and will do so next month after the Oscar ceremony. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approached him on a year-to-year basis, said Jane Labonte, a publicist for the academy.

The Austrian-born Puck, arguably the world's most famous chef, has a business empire that includes seven upscale restaurants, among them Spago outlets in three cities; Wolfgang Puck Food Co., which oversees Wolfgang Puck Cafe and ObaChine in addition to a frozen foods line; and Puck, Lazaroff Inc., which sells housewares, cookbooks and other items under the Puck name. All told, Puck-related businesses are said to generate well over $125 million.

Puck got his start peeling vegetables in hotel kitchens as a teen, working his way to a chef at Maxim's in Paris and eventually, executive chef at Ma Maison. He opened the first Spago in the early 1980s and became a celebrity in part thanks to the glittering Oscar parties he gave for the late super-agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar.

While Puck has been doing a substantial amount of catering over the years for conventions and private parties, these services are usually handled out of his various restaurants. The proposed deal with Hollywood & Highland would for the first time give him a separate facility to base his catering operations.

Another celebrity chef, Patina's Joachim Splichal, had initial discussions about catering for the project, but the talks never went any further, he said through a spokeswoman.

Hollywood & Highland is proving to be the driving force for the area's revival after years of decline. Already, rents are rising and new investors are snapping up properties along Hollywood Boulevard.

So far, the only official tenant in Hollywood & Highland is musician-producer Quincy Jones' restaurant, Q's Jook Joint. There had been speculation that Puck might move his original Spago Restaurant to the location, but Lazaroff said, "we don't need any more restaurants."

However, restaurants are starting to gravitate to Hollywood, including the Mezzo Supper Club on Cahuenga Boulevard and Chasen's Hollywood Cafe in the Art Deco Max Factor building on Highland Avenue. One broker likens the area to Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade several years ago, before its renaissance.

"We have major national restaurant clients looking at the boulevard," said Ira Spilky, who has a boutique restaurant-entertainment brokerage business in West Los Angeles. "There's no question the area is coming alive tremendously, based on the amount of money being put in by major developers, the TrizecHahn project and investment by the Community Redevelopment Agency."