LIVERPOOL'S latest vision for the prestige Kings Dock site will be completed in time for the city's culture celebrations in 2008, regeneration chief Jim Gill promised last night.
Following the collapse of the plan by Everton FC to build a stadium on the river-front site, Liverpool Vision unveiled new proposals for the dock.
The £100m scheme includes a 9,000-seat concert arena that doubles as an 80,000 sq ft exhibition hall, a conference centre for up to 1,500 delegates and a four star hotel.
There will also be 1,500 homes, costing from £250,000 each, facing the river and parking for hundreds of cars.
The new plan immediately came under fire from a leading academic and a planning think-tank spokesman with claims that the site was being sacrificed for the sake of "throwing up" a hasty development.
What generated dismay and anger in architectural circles was the proposal to position 1,500 homes along the world famous waterfront.
Liverpool Vision chief executive Jim Gill said the homes were needed to generate the funds needed for the rest of the development in a scheme already costed at £100m.
That cut no ice with Dr Athanassios Migos, senior lecturer in architecture at Liverpool John Moores University.
His students have built a 60ft model of their own vision of how the waterfront - including Kings Dock - should look. Their Manhattan-style skyline is vastly different from what Liverpool Vision, the public-private regeneration company has in mind for Kings following the collapse of the Everton Stadium plan.
Dr Migos said: "The proposed scheme does not match in any way the important location of this world class waterfront site.
"There is a real danger of repeating the bad urban design and planning mistakes of the past 20 or 30 years, such as the 'Noddy' box houses at the marina. There is nothing proposed that respects the boldness of the site.
"This waterfront is of world importance and deserves a world-important statement. We should not accept a mere developer-led scheme that will be a financial nightmare, making a quick buck for the developers and leaving a long-lasting legacy for the rest of the city.
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