Svorinich to Push Forward on Plan for Aquarium : Economy: Harbor-area councilman will ask port officials for up to $1 million for study on feasibility of building facility. Attraction could provide fiscal boom for San Pedro and Wilmington.

Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich said Thursday that he will ask the Port of Los Angeles for $800,000 to $1 million to study the feasibility of building a major aquarium in San Pedro.

Svorinich, who represents the harbor area, says an aquarium could become a major tourist attraction, providing a much-needed economic boost to San Pedro and Wilmington.

“The Harbor Department made a decision 25 to 30 years ago that part of port development would be recreation and tourism,” Svorinich said. “The aquarium would be the crown jewel.”

John Barbieri, a staff consultant to Svorinich who once was communications director for Sea World, says Svorinich will request the study funds from the port within two weeks. Harbor officials had no comment on the proposal, saying only that they looked forward to meeting with the councilman to discuss the idea.

The site Svorinich plans to propose for the aquarium is the former Union Oil tank farm off 22nd Street, opposite the Cabrillo Marina. Svorinich said he sees no problem with asking the port to provide seed money for a project that is purely recreational.

“Years ago, the port staff and commissioners decided that the west side of the San Pedro Channel, going up through the Cabrillo Marina, was going to be allocated for tourism uses, so the aquarium project fits right into their plan,” he said.

Svorinich already has begun forming a nonprofit committee, called the Los Angeles Aquarium Committee Inc., to oversee the aquarium’s development. The committee will include a board of directors and work with an advisory panel representing the Cabrillo Marine Museum and the harbor community.

One of the committee’s first tasks will be to study other aquarium projects. Baltimore, New Orleans and Chicago all have aquariums that have helped revitalize the economies of those cities. Boston’s New England Aquarium anchors waterfront development in that city, and the nearby Fanueil Hall, a tourist market of shops and restaurants, could be a model for San Pedro to duplicate, Svorinich said.

The economic effect of Baltimore’s aquarium was particularly striking, Svorinich said.

“Baltimore was completely turned around by an aquarium,” he said. “And that is why I’m trying to establish the aquarium as one of the major links in the economic chain of development in San Pedro.”

Baltimore officials are particularly proud of their aquarium.

“People from all over the world are calling us to ask how we did it,” said Gil Stotler, assistant director of tourism for the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Assn. “The aquarium was the real key to turning this town around. (Everyone) realized that this city was a dying city, literally a dying city, and we had to do something.

“Then we added wharves and warehouses, a promenade, two pavilions (and) a world-class aquarium, and it became Harbor Place,” Stotler said. “At first, Baltimore was more of a day-trip destination, but once word got out it became a full-fledged international destination.”

Los Angeles already is an international destination, but San Pedro is not. Yet 1 million people stop at the harbor on cruises each year. Business and community leaders have long discussed ways to keep these visitors in San Pedro overnight--and lure others who are in town to visit such attractions as Universal Studios and Disneyland.

“We know there’s a market for it,” Svorinich said. “We could market it to Los Angeles County alone and have it be a big success. What are there, maybe 8 million people in Los Angeles County?”