After three years of development, a plan was released Thursday for a biology research complex equipped with research vessels, high-tech laboratories and a wave tank along San Pedro's waterfront.

The proposed 28-acre oceanfront campus, dubbed City Dock One Marine Research Center, would serve as the new home for the Southern California Marine Institute, a consortium of 11 college and university campuses.

If ultimately approved by the Los Angeles City Council and the Board of Harbor Commissioners, the facility would share space with government researchers, marine-related businesses and environmental groups, according to a draft environmental impact report released by port officials.

"City Dock One has the ability to be transformational to San Pedro and the Harbor Area because it brings another type of job cluster to our port and region," said Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, who has led the planning for the research facility and first brought her idea before the harbor commission in August 2009.

Earlier this month, the harbor commission agreed to establish a nonprofit group to raise funds to build the new lab, which is estimated to cost $416 million over two phases.

Plans call for equipping the new SCMI facility with classrooms, offices, laboratories, water storage tanks, a 150-seat auditorium with theater-style seating, and an 18,500-square-foot floating dock with a dozen slips to accommodate small

The old Westway Terminal Corp. property at Berths 70-71 would be converted into a 50,000-square-foot lab for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and berths for research vessels up to 250 feet long.

One of the facility's main attractions will be a steel-reinforced concrete wave tank that would study the rise and fall of sea levels, sea shifts and the effects of tsunamis on the Pacific Ocean.

The spacious marine campus would be an upgrade from the SCMI's current 11,000-square-foot facility on Terminal Island, said Dan Pondella, the institute's board president and an associate professor of biology at Occidental College.

"This is a completely unique project and our work on this is unlike any other marine lab we know of in the world," Pondella said. "It's a complete win-win for the surrounding communities, the harbor and the schools involved because it will be a job creator and an excellent teaching tool for students in our area."

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Proposed biology research complex unveiled for San Pedro waterfront