‘Jurassic’ Ride to Be Dino-Sized : Theme park: Uni- versal is spending more than $80 million on the project, sources say. Some neighbors fear its impact.

As construction crews lay the groundwork for an indoor jungle stalked by mechanized dinosaurs, details from the guarded site of “Jurassic Park--The Ride” reveal that Universal Studios Hollywood is building one of the world’s most elaborate and expensive theme park attractions.

The water ride, featuring animatronics from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 hit film, is not scheduled to open until the summer of 1996. In the meantime, Universal executives are reluctant to discuss progress on the site that goes by the name “Project 777.”

But architectural plans on file with the county Regional Planning Department show that the 67,015-square-foot attraction will occupy the center of the hillside park, between the “E.T.--Extra-Terrestrial” ride and a Chinese restaurant.

Sources close to Universal put construction costs at more than $80 million. That dwarfs Universal’s previous centerpiece, the $60-million “Back to the Future” ride, and approaches the $100 million that Disneyland spent on its “Indiana Jones Adventure.”

By comparison, Denver’s entire Elitch Gardens Amusement Park, which opened last weekend with 22 rides, cost $95 million.

Rumors about the scale of the construction site have some of Universal’s neighbors running scared. They fear that the ride may turn out to be as noisy as it is costly, and have begun sardonically referring to the attraction as “Project 666, for the devil,” said resident James Herzoff.

“I hear that there are going to be 50-foot dinosaurs,” said Herzoff, who lives two doors from the Universal property line. “What does a 50-foot tyrannosaurus rex sound like? I’ll bet it doesn’t sound like my bichon frise. “

The Jurassic Park ride is “a giant project,” said Renee Weitzer, a planning deputy for City Council President John Ferraro, who met with Universal executives last year to view artistic renderings of the attraction.

The ride begins at the towering gate made famous in the film, according to a statement that Universal is expected to release Friday at a New York travel industry convention.

Sir Richard Attenborough, who portrayed the park’s creator in the film, appears in a videotaped greeting just beyond the entrance. He insists that the errors that doomed his first experiment with prehistoric DNA, in Costa Rica, have been corrected in this new park. The more dangerous types of dinosaurs, he says, have been safely caged behind 10,000-volt electrified fences.

Guests then board rafts that travel down a fog-shrouded jungle river through Herbivore Country, inhabited by plant-eating creatures. What follows is a high-speed dash past a spitting dilophosaurus and a charging tyrannosaurus rex, followed by a plummet down an 80-foot waterfall.

Construction is taking place not far from Sound Stage 29, where Spielberg did much of his filming under perhaps the tightest security in the studio’s history. Universal hopes that its spinoff attraction will prolong the commercial life of the highest-grossing movie of all time. “Jurassic Park” recently exceeded $1 billion in gross revenues with its videotape release entrenched on Billboard’s Top 10 sales list.

Universal has tried to keep the project under wraps at a time when its parent corporation, MCA, is undergoing a change of ownership. Last month, beverage heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. agreed to spend $5.7 billion for a controlling interest in the entertainment conglomerate.

Theme park executives would prefer to talk about the three attractions they are opening this summer, including a stunt show based on the impending Kevin Costner film “Waterworld.”

In the competitive $6-billion-a-year theme park industry, a successful new ride can boost attendance by as much as 10%, increasing profits by millions. Thus, Universal might worry about undermining this summer’s business by talking about next summer’s attraction, said Tim O’Brien, a regional editor for the Nashville-based Amusement Business magazine.

“It’s the worst-kept secret in town that they are building a ‘Jurassic Park’ ride,” O’Brien said. “Beyond that, few people know exactly what’s going on out there.”

Harrison Price, an attractions industry analyst based in Torrance, welcomes the addition of another multimillion-dollar ride to the local landscape.

“Anything over $30 million is huge,” Price said. “This is obviously their response to Indiana Jones.”

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L.A.’s ‘Jurassic’ Period “Jurassic Park--The Ride” is scheduled to open at Universal Studios Hollywood in the summer of 1996. Below is a preliminary sketch of the 67,015 square-foot water attraction.

1: Park entrance marked by “Jurassic Park” gate and a taped greeting from Sir Richard Attenborough, who played the park’s creator in the movie.

2: Start of ride: Guest board rafts that travel down fog-shrouded jungle river.

3: “Herbivore Country”: Inhabited by animatronic reproductions of plant-eating dinosaurs.

4: Land Cruiser: A demolished Land Cruiser dangles perilously from a guardrail. 5: Velociraptor pen: Rafts accelerate past a hole in the electrified fence surrounding the velociraptor pen. 6: T-rex encounter: Tyrannosaurus rex charges. Raft approaches waterfall. Sources: Los Angeles County Regional Planning Department; Universal Studios; interviews.