Dome to be 'entertainment city'

Details of the Millennium Dome's proposed transformation from New Labour's notorious white elephant into an entertainment "city within a city" were revealed today.

The Dome is officially renamed "The O2" after the mobile company that has struck a £6 million-a-year sponsorship deal with Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) - the US company heading a £500million investment in the site.

It will open in spring 2007 as a permanent entertainment and arts hub. About 10 per cent of the site's 1.5 million square feet is to be set aside for a Las Vegas-style " supercasino" - even though the Government has yet to appoint the advisory panel which will decide where such facilities can be built.

AEG chief executive David Campbell said of the casino plan: "Until the Government sets up the commission it's all speculation. Yes, it's part of the development, but no, it's not the linchpin of the whole thing."

The centre of the reinvented Dome will be a 23,000-seat arena that will host about 150 gigs and sports events a year. As part of their ambition to "make the Dome a crown jewel, not an embarrassment", its owners intend it to have the finest acoustics in the capital.

The "02 Arena" will take up 40 per cent of the site. Encircling it will be an indoor "street" more than a kilometre long lined with other attractions, including the proposed casino.

There will be a smaller, 2,200-seat music venue for club events and more intimate gigs.

Next to it a British Music Hall of Fame will host exhibitions dedicated to the nation's pop heritage. TV company Endemol and the British Phonographic Industry are working on the project, which will mirror the US music hall of fame.

The O2 will boast approximately seven bars and 10 restaurants. Mr Campbell said: "We are talking to some of the best of British as well as international food."

AEG is hoping to lure film premieres away from their traditional London home in Leicester Square to the site's new 10-screen multiplex, which will host the city's secondlargest "premiere screen".

There will be another music venue, a smaller-scale jazz and blues club, alongside a 2,000-seater Las Vegasinspired music theatre.

AEG runs the Colosseum in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, where Elton John and Celine Dion share a yearround residency. The company will bring artists of a similar calibre and draw to play runs of gigs for tens of weeks at a time.

Mr Campbell said: "They are all self-contained buildings, so if you were to take the dome structure off the top, the buildings would stand alone. For acoustics that means you can run Metallica in the large arena and a string quartet in the music club and the two will not interfere with each other."

The O2 Exhibition Centre will be a geodesic dome made from the same material as the Eden Project. AEG is negotiating with the Egyptian government over securing the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb for an early show.

The Dome was the largest blot on New Labour's first-term record, devouring about ?800 million of Lottery cash. It still costs the taxpayer ?190,000 a year to maintain. Those costs will start to decrease when the 02 work begins later this year and will end altogether in 2007.

After it opens, O2 will hope to increase its 14-million phone customer-base by offering VIP facilities for users of its network. This will include priority ticket booking and customer-only sections in the main arena.

It also wants to create a "2-shaped" pier or terminal between the Dome and the Thames so that, from the air, the company will boast one of the world's largest logos.