A wildly ambitious plan to turn the beleaguered Aquarium of the Bay next to Pier 39 into a dazzling, high-tech “ecotarium” dedicated to the San Francisco Bay ecosystem will be unveiled Friday in a move that officials believe will establish the enterprise as a world leader in climate science.

The $200 million proposal by Bay.org, which was established 37 years ago as the Bay Institute, is to fill the aquarium with interactive exhibits, holographic-like images and computer-generated multilingual displays in addition to, of course, tanks full of swimming fish and other marine animals.

The plan for the newly christened Bay Ecotarium will be presented during a $300-per-ticket benefit at the Bently Reserve in San Francisco. Models show the blocky waterfront building that now contains the aquarium transformed into a gleaming blue iridescent dome resembling fish scales.

“We want to tell a collective and collaborative story of nature,” said George Jacob, the president and chief executive of Bay.org, an amalgam of six institutions with the aquarium as the flagship. “If this is a world-class city, it should reflect that. If we can be that beacon of hope, that landmark, then the city will benefit.”

Jacob envisions an immersive experience in which visitors enter the building through a digitally enhanced waterfall next to a tank filled with huge mola mola sunfish and move upward to exhibits on as many as three floors. Through panels and displays, visitors would learn the history of the bay dating back 12,000 years, when it was a river flowing through a vast plain stretching 12 miles out toward the Farallon Islands.

The new aquarium would retain the popular acrylic tunnels, which allow visitors to get a glimpse for 300 feet of what it might look like to be under the bay. But Jacob wants to add a half million gallons of saltwater and 10,000 fish to the collection of 20,000 or so sharks, bat rays, octopuses, eels, river otters and other aquatic animals that the aquarium now has on display to reflect life under the surface of the bay and nearby waters.

Interactive exhibits would be added highlighting American Indian fishing and land stewardship, plate tectonics, earthquakes and historic changes to the landscape from the Sierra to the coast.

Computer-generated screens would appear as visitors stroll by the tanks, providing details about fish life cycles, mating and other biological information. There would also be portals with information about sea level rise, carbon sequestration, plastic litter in the ocean and other environmental issues, Jacob said.

The Ecotarium would include a submersible launch with remote-control and human-operated submarines on tracks inside the building that lead to the bay, allowing working scientists to beam back images of their underwater expeditions to student groups at a learning center inside.

Outside, 350,000 square feet of open space would be turned into an exhibit space open to the public free of charge, he said. Visitors would be able to rest at a “Sea Level Rise Bar.”

“We want to make people feel the environment as well as see it,” said Jacob, who hopes to win approval of his plan from city planning and other agencies by 2020 and open the doors by 2022. “There would be a strong emphasis on understanding the ecosystem from the Sierra to the sea.”

Jacob’s vision has been a long time coming. The 65,000-square-foot aquarium was purchased for $9.5 million in 2009 by the nonprofit Bay Institute. The sale delighted environmentalists, educators and scientists who were afraid the other bidder, Orlando-based Ripley Entertainment Inc., would buy the aquarium and turn it into a gaudy tourist attraction.

The closing of escrow was the culmination of a 13-year effort to keep the aquarium afloat. It had originally opened as Underwater World in 1996 amid controversy and legal wrangling. Three years later it had sunk into bankruptcy.

The Bay Institute got a deal. The aquarium was appraised in 2008 at $18.4 million, but the new owner’s plan to transform it into a center for education and research was a tall task for a nonprofit.

To smooth the waters, the institute and aquarium joined forces with the Bay Academy, Sea Lion Center, Bay Model Alliance and EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park under the Bay.org umbrella. Their goal is to preserve and protect the San Francisco Bay ecosystem.

Jacob, a Smithsonian Institution-trained museum designer hired last year to lead Bay.org, brought with him years of experience in designing and building more than 100 museums and interpretive centers around the world focused on nature, wetlands, sea, wildlife and science. He said a team of experts from the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom was involved in the planning and design of the proposed Ecotarium.

His task, nevertheless, is not easy. Although the number of visitors to the aquarium is up from the 400,000 a year in the mid-2000s, annual visitation has stagnated at between 600,000 and 800,000 over the past nine years. That’s despite additions of stinging jellyfish and octopuses, multilingual exhibits, bilingual interpretation technology and even specially recorded music designed to enhance fish rhythms.

Jacob hopes to quadruple the number of visitors, extend partnerships with organizations like Mission Blue, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and other aquariums, UC Davis, climate think tanks, and ocean conservation groups involved in shark tagging, fish breeding and marine mammal studies.

One major goal is to attract 250,000 schoolchildren a year to educational programs, lectures, web portals and workshops. That’s more than six times the number that currently come to the aquarium.

“I’ve never seen a child cry in an aquarium,” Jacob said. “An institution like this can provide you with content that you can learn from.”

The local focus would be important because 40 percent of California's land area is watershed that drains into San Francisco Bay. Two-thirds of all residents depend one way or another on the bay watershed, which supports a huge assortment of wildlife including one of the largest salmon runs on the West Coast.

Blueprints and drawings of the new aquarium design will be introduced during Friday’s fundraiser, which will feature Jill Biden, a longtime educator and the wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist, explorer and author.

Jacob said he’s counting on having a mutually beneficial relationship with the city’s tourism industry and hopes city officials will support the new endeavor.

“If the city can market a penitentiary (Alcatraz), they can certainly rally around a beacon of hope,” he said. “This project could be an economic engine that could impact tourism.”

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @pfimrite