Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool is to put proposals for a new £45m exhibition centre to its owners, the city council. ACC Liverpool tells Exhibition News it has concluded an initial feasibility study on the King’s Dock site and the board is ready to take the project to the next stage.

The level of events business “has encouraged ACC Liverpool to investigate options for continued expansion to widen the venue’s scope, attracting additional business and revenue to the region,” the venue says.

ACC Liverpool chief executive Bob Prattey tells Exhibition News: “Options for expanding ACC Liverpool’s capacity are being discussed and the initial feasibility study has encouraged us to move to the next phase of exploring funding options.”

The development is expected to include three, 2,700sqm exhibition halls.

Prattey says the size of the development would allow bigger conferences and events to be staged and open the doors to the stand-alone exhibition market.

The company expects to have provided around 200 conference centre event days, with more than 71,500 delegates in attendance, by its year end in March 2010.

On the Arena side of the business the number of attendees is estimated at 615,000 for the year.