(01-23) 10:49 PST San Francisco -- When Coit Tower reopens in April after a six-month face-lift, the Telegraph Hill icon will have a new look and a new operator.

After nearly a decade of often rancorous discussions, a nasty 2012 election scrap and plenty of grudging compromises, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission is set Thursday to recommend a five-year lease agreement with Terry Grimm, owner of the Anchor Oyster Bar in the Castro and the upscale Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma County.

Grimm's job will be to spiff up the look and operation of the city landmark, which has fallen on hard times in recent years.

"One of our goals is to enhance the visitor experience," said Sarah Ballard, a spokeswoman for the Recreation and Park Department.

That's a kind way of saying the city has been eager to dump the mom-and-pop operating style of Fashion House Inc., which has run the Coit Tower concession since 1992, and replace it with a more professional operation, including a uniformed elevator operator and docents who will greet visitors and conduct guided tours.

Gift-shop improvements

Grimm also has agreed to upgrade the gift shop, which has been little more than a candy and souvenir stand jammed into the tower's ground floor, into a shop that the lease says will be "attractive, dignified and uncluttered," focusing on books and souvenirs that are locally produced and highlight Coit Tower, its history and the city around it.

"Certainly we want to provide the opportunity to get a souvenir or two," said Nick Kinsey, director of property for the park department. "But we thought visitors needed a bookstore with items to interpret the experience, rather than a license plate with their name on it."

Professionalism is a priority in the new lease, he added.

The previous workers "were not always knowledgeable about Coit Tower, the importance of the murals and the need to protect them," he said.

While the 210-foot-tall tower, built in 1933 with a bequest from Lillie Hitchcock Coit, is a fixture of the city's skyline, the Depression Era-murals that cover the inside walls are the structure's artistic highlight. They have also been the flash point for many of the recent arguments about the best use for the facility.

It was concern over the deterioration of the murals that sparked Proposition B, a June 2012 advisory measure that called for strict limits on private events at Coit Tower.

The city's 2011 proposal for a new concessionaire called for an increase in private events and commercial activity at the tower to raise more money for the park department and its various programs and facilities, said Jon Golinger, one of the founders of Protect Coit Tower, the nonprofit group behind the ballot measure.

Public access key

"We wanted to make sure that the emphasis at Coit Tower was on public accessibility, not as simply a cash cow," especially when those private events, many taking place after regular hours, could endanger the murals, he said.

Prop. B passed with 53 percent of the vote, but that didn't end the dispute. Arguing that the measure was advisory only, the park department later in 2012 proposed an agreement that allowed one private event a month at Coit Tower.

The new concession agreement dumps the plan allowing any private events. What didn't go away, though, is the city's effort to pull more money out of the tower.

Over the past five years, the city has collected an average of $748,362 from the Coit Tower lease, almost all of it coming from the city's 90 percent share of the $7 cost of an elevator ride to the observation deck.

The new agreement calls for a minimum rent of $662,400 a year, but the city is expecting more than that. With no plans to boost the elevator charge, the city expects to collect $1.5 million from Coit Tower by 2019.

The bulk of the new money comes from the projected growth of those elevator fees, which means the park department is banking on a steady rise in the number of visitors to Coit Tower and the surrounding 4.8 acres of Pioneer Park.

"Coit Tower is pretty packed as it is, and I don't know how they're going to get more bodies in there," said Golinger, who is also an officer of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, the politically influential local neighborhood association.

Disputes continue

Not all the disputes are settled. Grimm, with his restaurant background, originally talked about providing chowders, seafood cocktails and possibly sandwiches and other food at the site. But concerns from the Department of Public Health about providing restaurant-style food from a small cart that's allowed on site and neighborhood worries that food service would persuade people to linger and tie up traffic threatened to delay the new agreement.

The question of food will be "part of the continuing conversation" about the agreement, Ballard said, with any final decision coming after the facility reopens.

Plans now call for Grimm's contract to be approved by late February, so his crews can complete the gift store makeover by the time the tower is reopened in April.

If the Rec and Park Commission recommends approval of the agreement, as expected, the pact goes to the Board of Supervisors for the final OK.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com