The Fourth Grace project, which was also meant to include a substantial museum as well as flats, office space and hotels, was abandoned after concerns about mounting costs came to the surface. Architect Will Alsop's Cloud design was controversial, and the scheme would have cost in excess of £300m. The NWDA has recently rejigged its finances and put a new emphasis on getting improved commercial returns from its investments. Earlier, Dr Fleming said that he hoped the NWDA board meeting on Friday would approve funding for the museum scheme, which would exhibit the city's 800-year history. He said it was crucial that a decision on the funding was made tomorrow to guarantee Liverpool had the new museum ready for European Capital of Culture year 2008. Dr Fleming is determined that the building itself must be spectacular enough to sit alongside the Three Graces at Liverpool's Pier Head on a World Heritage site - but must also be a design that the people of Liverpool will be happy with. He says that, if the money is approved tomorrow, the search for an architect will begin first thing on Monday. Dr Fleming said: "We expect that people will come to Liverpool for two reasons, to see the museum and its exhibits and to see the building itself. "We want a top drawer architect who is comfortable working alongside a site of major architectural importance. "We won't be using words like 'iconic' or 'landmark' to describe the new museum as we did with the Fourth Grace, what we want is something different all together. It must be modern and stunning, but it must also be much loved by the people of Liverpool." The NWDA funding and Objective 1 cash accounts for 80% of the cost of the museum plan. The remaining money is subject to a National Lottery bid next summer. However, National Museums Liverpool were already confident of winning lottery funding for their part of the Cloud scheme. The proposed Museum of Liverpool would be around 9,000 sq metres, putting it in the top 20 biggest museums built in the past 100 years, and on a par with Trafford's Imperial War Museum of the North. It will tell Liverpool's story from its birth in 1207 to what made it one of the richest cities in the world, as well as predicting its future. Exhibits will include items from Liverpool's history which have been hidden for generations, designed to bring home what life was like for local people from the time of King John to the present day. Like other NML galleries, the Museum of Liverpool would be free. It would include recreations of the mansions of wealthy merchants, and the hard slog of life working in docks. Curators have already chosen the first special exhibition - a showcase of Liverpool as the world "Capital of Pop". The new museum will rise up from the river, slightly closer to the waterfront than the neighbouring Port of Liverpool building. billgleeson@dailypost.co.uk | 
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