Visitors to UnderWater World at Pier 39 in San Francisco, which opened in April, walk through a clear acrylic tunnel under the aquarium to view sea life.

Pedersen is president of Dallas-based Tarlton Aquastar Ltd., which wants to develop UnderWater World Hawaii, a walk-through aquarium costing up to $45 million at Dole Cannery in Iwilei.

The aquarium would be stocked with 10,000 fish, sharks, giant rays and other sea creatures. Visitors would travel through the aquarium on a moving sidewalk, under a 400-foot-long clear acrylic tunnel, while viewing the marine life and listening to a talk on the exhibit via headphones.

So far, Pedersen has a predevelopment deal with Muskegon, Mich.-based Horizon Group Inc., operators of Dole Cannery, and is looking for local bank financing. If that happens, he said that he would like to move quickly on construction and open in late 1997 or the first quarter of 1998. That would involve about $20 million to $25 million in hard construction costs, and jobs for 800 to 1,000 construction workers.

Once open, the Hawaii aquarium would employ about 120 people, he said.

"Most of the professional jobs will be filled from Hawaii," Pedersen said yesterday.

He estimated that the Hawaii aquarium would draw about 1.5 million people a year, or more than 4,000 people a day. Since the openings of UnderWater World aquariums in San Francisco in April and Minneapolis in June they have attracted more than 500,000 visitors combined, Pedersen said.

"We're getting 6,500 people a day at the Mall of the America in Minneapolis and we've been as high as 7,000 a day," Pedersen said. "At Pier 39 in San Francisco, we're getting about 4,500 a day, slightly off of our projection but that is because the San Francisco aquarium is too small. People don't want to wait three hours to get in."

The Hawaii aquarium will be slightly larger than the Minneapolis aquarium and it will be designed for the marine species in the area, he said.

"We want to get ideas from people in Hawaii," Pedersen said. "Our preliminary ideas are to have an entrance with a rain-forest and volcano exhibit. We also want to include fresh water species. We also want a longer tunnel than the others (San Francisco and Minneapolis) so we can get the spectacular experience of the reef exhibits."

Pedersen, who planned a news conference today to unveil the details of the aquarium, said he hopes to begin construction late this year. However, final plans are not drawn and nothing has been submitted to the city Building Department.

Pedersen said Horizon and Tarlton Aquastar are putting up 40 percent of the funds to build the Hawaii aquarium.

"This 40 percent equity is higher than we had in San Francisco (20 percent equity) and Minneapolis (13 percent) so we think it will be easier to get financing for the remaining 60 percent of the Hawaii project costs," Pedersen said.

He has talked to Bank of Hawaii and First Hawaiian Bank about the financing and expects an answer in 90 to 120 days.

Pedersen talked frankly about the higher risks of going into a location that has not had the big traffic counts of Pier 39 (10 million visitors annually) and the Mall of the America (35 million visitors annually). Dole Cannery attracts more than 2 million visitors a year.

"That's why we are putting up a much larger equity portion in Hawaii, and Horizon has been very supportive," said Pedersen, an economist who studied in Denmark.

As for his investors in Tarlton Aquastar, Pedersen said they include the Bass family, some of the founders of San Francisco-based investment banking firm Montgomery Securities, and a large California developer.

The viability of the new Hawaii aquarium, and its impact on the Waikiki Aquarium and Sea Life Park are still unanswered questions.

"I think any kind of new facility is welcome," said Bruce Carlson, director of the Waikiki Aquarium. "But naturally we're concerned about the effect on us. We're looking at it to make sure that the long-term interests of the Waikiki aquarium are protected."

The Waikiki Aquarium spent $3 million on renovations and re-opened in May 1994.

Carlson also said he is working with Gov. Ben Cayetano on an idea to put in a world-class aquarium in Kakaako at a cost of up to $60 million.

Carlson wouldn't comment on the economic viability of having two additional aquariums in Honolulu.

Nick Ordway, an economy professor and real estate expert at the University of Hawaii, said the aquarium is the type of experience Hawaii tourists want. But he didn't know whether the Dole Cannery aquarium would be successful.

"There are so many great aquariums in the world and I don't think all of them are making money," Ordway said.

However, Ordway said people should look at the aquarium in the context of all that is going on at Dole Cannery. Horizon has said it will be spending $100 million in a long-term effort to improve the Dole Cannery, which now includes 18 factory retail outlets.

The Dole Cannery aquarium will hold 1.2-million to 1.4-million gallons of water and people will move through a 7-foot-high acrylic tunnel. The water in the tank will be 14-feet deep, with a 6-foot depth over the acrylic tunnel.

The Honolulu aquarium will be larger than the 707,000-gallon aquarium at Pier 39 in San Francisco.

The Honolulu aquarium will be the third of six planned for the United States by Tarlton Aquastar Ltd.

Tickets in Hawaii are expected to be similar to San Francisco, which charges $6.50 for children and seniors, and $12.95 for adults.