Spiritual dollars. (Up Front).

WILL the new Cathedral be an economic driver for downtown Los Angeles?

Area merchants and economists say it's way too early to know how much business the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels will drum up for nearby stores, restaurants, museums and hotels.

Officials of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles believe visitors to the new cathedral will come from four groups: parishioners from the church parish's boundaries; domestic and international tourists; other worshippers from the area; and downtown employees, including government workers who will patronize the cathedral's cafe and eat at its scenic gardens.

Many of the tourists are expected to be from heavily Catholic Mexico, which could be a boost to the downtown hotel business.

"We know there will be an economic impact and it will be in the millions of dollars (annually)," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "This is a unique facility. So you'll get people coming into downtown that normally wouldn't come to downtown."

Much of the spending will come from the pockets of tourists and worshipers seeking restaurants, small retail shops and cultural attractions.

They are also within walking distance or short drive from the jewelry and garment districts, Chinatown, the Central Market, Museum of Contemporary Art and Olvera Street -- the city's birthplace and origin of its Catholic roots.

The cathedral's opening follows a MOCA-commissioned study taken during the Andy Warhol exhibit that found 65 percent of those surveyed said the downtown area exceeded their expectations in cleanliness, attractions, safety and parking.

"That would be the ideal situation to create. It requires people to rethink their image of downtown," said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. "For a number of those people (the cathedral) will be one of the rare times they do come downtown."

The 64,000-square-foot cathedral will seat 3,000 people while the Grand Plaza, encompassing nearly half of the five-acre site on the corner of Grand Avenue and Temple Street, has room for 6,000 people attending an outdoor mass.

Services will be held three or four times on Sundays and twice a day on weekdays. Church officials predict near or at-capacity crowds on the weekends with as many as 200 people for each of the weekend events. The church has already booked hundreds of guided tours.

The cathedral will serve an unknown number of Catholics (a census is underway) living within the parish boundaries of the Hollywood (101) Freeway to the north, the Harbor (110) to the west, the L.A. River to the east and Olympic Boulevard to the south.

Those worshipers have been without a local place of worship since St. Vibiana's Cathedral was red-tagged following the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Downtown boosters hope the new structure will play into their plans for a redevelopment of the Grand Avenue area, which includes next summer's opening of the $275 million Walt Disney Concert Hall a block away from the cathedral.