A stroll down Main Street in Huntington Beach is fun, but it's over almost as soon as it begins.

The street's trademark surfwear shops and coffeehouses make up just a brief half-mile stretch alongside Pacific Coast Highway.

Paul Makarechian, a boyish-faced developer with enthusiasm to spare, wants to expand Surf City's downtown by turning a 31-acre dirt lot near Main Street into parks, shops, restaurants, a hotel and 516 condominiums.

The development, dubbed Pacific City, would fill a downtown void by linking Main Street with the area's big hotels: the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa and the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort.

The project is a bid to bring a bit of panache to Huntington Beach, which has seen a revival in recent years but still sits somewhere between ratty beach town and coastal chic.

"There's a void in the county," said Makarechian, predicting that he can lure offbeat, yet swank Asian eateries popular in Los Angeles like Sushi Roku or its offshoot Katana. "Those kinds of restaurants wouldn't be caught dead in one of Orange County's mails, because "it would almost take away from their brand," he said.

Makarechian heads Makar Properties LLC, developer of the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point and owner of several office buildings and a large landholding in Colorado.

In June, Makar got approval from the Huntington Beach City Council for the basic outline of the $500 million Pacific City project.

"He's a young guy, he's well-financed and he gets it," said Shaheen Sadeghi, developer of Costa Mesa shopping centers The Lab and The Camp. "I'm hoping he will take advantage of the opportunity and do something different."

Sadeghi noted that other developers haven't made the most of the coastal land, building strip malls and relying on national retailers. "People are not going to drive halfway down PCH to go to The Gap," he said.

Newport Beach-based Capital Pacific Holdings Inc., run by Paul's father Hadi Makarechian, bought the land for $28 million in 1998. Makar took possession in 2001 as part of an equity buyout of homebuilder Capital Pacific's commercial arm.

For now, ChevronTexaco Corp. is clearing the land of contamination from years of oil pumping. Makar plans to start building later next year; the first shops and condos are set for 2007.

Makarechian has location on his side--namely the Pacific Ocean. He has hired Irvine-based architect McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Inc. to detail his lofty vision.

Pacific City is designed around a saucer-shaped cobblestone street. Small parks and fountains dot the development. Restaurants, shops and a hotel are set right off Pacific Coast Highway, with condos behind them.

The project is set to be split by Pacific View Avenue, which now passes behind the Hyatt and the Hilton and then ends when reaching the dirt lot that is slated to become Pacific City.

An expanded Pacific View Avenue is what stands to link the waterfront hotels with Main Street. Pacific View should be narrow and bordered by wide sidewalks, Makarechian said.

Pacific City "has expanded the traditional definition of Mediterranean architecture," City Planning Director Howard Zelefsky said, noting that concerns raised by residents near the project over contamination and traffic have been resolved. "The city and developer and residents want the same thing," he said. "They want clean soil."

Pacific City was the original name given to Huntington Beach by Philip A. Stanton in 1901. A syndicate headed by Stanton bought 1,500 acres around Main Street for $100,000, with visions of forming a resort town to rival Atlantic City, N.J. It was later sold to an investor group headed by Pacific Electric Railway magnate Henry E. Huntington.

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