SAN FRANCISCO -- In keeping with the sunny, positive vibe of their best-loved music, members of the Grateful Dead camp expressed confidence that their planned $50-million-plus Terrapin Station interactive music museum would break ground here next year and become a focal point for world music.

"We always wanted to have a place in San Francisco to play and serve as a home base," said former Dead percussionist Mickey Hart of the ambitious project, which is expected to feature a theater named after the band's late leader Jerry Garcia. "Terrapin is still in the works, and I think we've found a site that will work."

Although Hart would not elaborate on the location of the proposed site other than to say it would likely be on waterfront property, he explained that the multimedia performance space and world-music museum will be a place for the Dead's living members to perform and present the best music of the current generation.

Plans announced last year called for the museum -- named after the Dead's popular 1977 album -- to include a state-of-the-art theater and a multisensory psychedelic dance hall called "The Wheel." Also planned are several rooms of Grateful Dead archival material and music that will give fans access to the world's largest library of the group's live recordings.

The project's coordinator, Neil Cumsky, said the project will focus on the multi-use live performance Jerry Garcia Theater -- named after the Dead's late singer/guitarist -- and on the chronicling of musical cultures from around the world.

"We see this as the Lincoln Center of the West," said Cumsky, referring to Manhattan's fabled cultural showplace. He estimated that groundbreaking could take place within 18 months.

Cumsky said the amount of state-of-the-art technology in the museum's plans will likely require that it be built from scratch rather than being housed in a previously existing structure. He also said he sees the Jerry Garcia Theater as the cornerstone of Terrapin Station. The venue is planned to accommodate 2,000 fans for nighttime concerts, but also will be designed to break down into two or three smaller venues for daytime events.

Despite the Dead's reputation for attracting a crew of rabid followers -- known to be an integral part of the rock 'n' roll drug culture and affectionately known as Deadheads -- a spokesperson for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown said the mayor's office is eager to help the band and its devotees find a home for the project. The mayor's press secretary, Kandace Bender, insisted this city deserves the museum more than any other.

"It seems utterly appropriate that this project happen in the city," Bender said. "The Dead are a part of San Francisco's history." The Grateful Dead and their free-form jamming style of live performance came out of the Bay Area during the '60s. Years after they broke up following Garcia's death, the legend lives on through their music and the hippie culture that was born of it.

While he could not discuss how Terrapin Station would be financed, Cumsky said the project's coordinators had "no lack of confidence about funding" what he estimated would be a budget in excess of $50 million.

Numerous sites are being considered for the museum, Bender said, adding that each is being evaluated based on the impact it would have on the surrounding neighborhood.

While Hart said the current plans are focused on a spot near the city's waterfront -- specifically the increasingly developed Embarcadero area -- neither city spokespeople nor Cumsky would comment on the potential placement of the museum because the site is still under negotiation.

But Hart had no doubt about the role of the venture. "It will be the heart of world music," he said, "and also music in general. We want it to be a cultural icon, not just a museum."

Hart envisions Terrapin Station as the kind of fan-friendly space the Dead -- known for such psychedelic tunes as

"Friend of the Devil" (RealAudio excerpt) and "Fire on the Mountain" (RealAudio excerpt) -- have wanted to build for nearly 30 years.

The 55-year-old percussionist and leader of the Planet Drum world-music ensemble said he's most excited about a plan to build a museum room filled with percussion instruments. He also said he looks forward to a planned computer database that would allow Dead fans to access the band's live shows and custom make a CD featuring the music.

"There's lots of plans afoot," Hart said, "including a dance space that you can get totally lost in."

Hart ruled out the possible Dead reunion show at Terrapin Station on New Year's 1999 that former bassist Phil Lesh had alluded to last year. Hart said it is impossible for the museum to be finished in time for such an event.

A clerk at a Dead-inspired emporium located in the heart of San Francisco's hippie community, the Haight-Ashbury district, said the museum sounded like a great idea, as long as it didn't commercially exploit the band's image. "It's nice to see that the torch is lit," said Marcel Onate, a clerk at Positively Haight. "Even though Jerry's not here."

In an effort to raise the funds for the project, the Dead released a three-CD collector's set last year, The Terrapin Limited, which documents a Dead show that took place at the Capital Center in Landover, Md., in March 1990.