HOLLYWOOD, March 16: To the uninitiated, it may come as some surprise to learn that Hollywood — the industry — has not held its annual Oscars awards gala in Hollywood — the place — for more than four decades.

The last time was 1960, to be exact, at the famed Pantages. But after a 42-year delay, the Academy Awards return home this year, to a brand new theater built in the quintessential southern California setting — a new mega-mall.

The Kodak Theater opened in November of last year, part of a $615 million retail and entertainment complex called “Hollywood & Highland,” constructed by TrizecHahn Corp. at an intersection better known in recent years for tourist traps and fast-food restaurants than Hollywood glamour.

Eastman Kodak Co. agreed to pay a reported $75 million over 20 years for naming rights to the theater, which has already hosted concerts by Barry Manilow and Celine Dion.

In fact, Kodak is no stranger to the actual awards show, having won eight science and technical Oscars for its work with film and cameras.

“Every nominated motion picture in every major category has been shot on our film,” said Bob Gibbons, a Kodak spokesman. “It’s appropriate then that the Kodak name is really associated with the place.”

But despite Kodak’s significant outlay, on the day of the awards, the “Kodak Theater” sign on the front of the facility will be instead covered with Academy signage, leaving viewers to gather the location of the festivities from the announcer’s “live from the Kodak Theater” introduction to the show.

Gibbons said the company’s roof sign will also be visible during the show, though he was not sure if the company will run commercials during the awards, as it has done in past.

But as recently as October, there was some doubt as to whether the awards would go off at the theater as planned, after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it had security concerns, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Those issues were fixed by the Academy’s Oct. 15 deadline, though, and streets in and around the mall will begin to close in preparation for the awards to be handed out on March 24.

Some major streets, including a stretch of Hollywood Blvd., will be closed in some cases for five days or more as crews set up the lights, bleachers, red carpets and barricades that are yearly Oscar staples.

North-south traffic across the Hollywood Blvd. will be largely closed the day of the show to all but local residents, and Highland Ave., a major north-south artery, will be closed above Sunset Blvd. as well.

Russ Joyner, the vice president and general manager of the Hollywood & Highland complex, told Reuters “hundreds of security personnel” would be on hand the day of the show, both public and private, both in and out of uniform.

The mall will close the day of the show, and in the days leading up to the show increasingly large sections of the courtyard and parking lot will be blocked off to accommodate the Academy’s preparations, including the rolling out of red carpets and preparing broadcast space for the media.

But inside the theater, much of that preparatory work has already been done. It was designed with the awards show in mind, including pathways for cables built-in to the walls and removable seating sections that leave the remaining seats with improved views of the stage.

THEATER FLOURISHING, MALL STRUGGLING: But while the theater is off to a running start, the complex itself has not, at least initially, given the neighborhood the kind of boost that might have been expected.