The Liverpool City Council in the UK has decided to commission a design for a permanent cruise terminal able to handle turnaround calls by vessels of 3,600 passenger capacity and to replace the current, temporary and much smaller structure.
“The city council has appointed an international consultancy team led by Arup and including KKA Architects, Royal Haskoning DHV Engineering and cost consultants Turner and Townsend to produce a concept design,” Cruise Liverpool, which promotes the city as a cruise port, said in a statement.
“They will come up with a robust, fully costed plan for a terminal capable of handling 3,600 embarking and disembarking passengers with baggage – three times as many as the existing facility. The site would include passport control, passenger lounge, café, toilets, taxi rank, vehicle pick up point, coach layover area and a car park.”
The former Princes Jetty at Princes Parade, close to the landing stage, is preferred location and a potentially suitable site. The decision to replace the temporary structure follows a doubling in the number of vessels visiting Liverpool since it became a turnaround facility in 2012 – up from 31 to 61. Passenger numbers are up from 38,656 four years ago to an expected 86,365 this year.
The council previously planned to convert Cunard Building, formerly headquarters of the famous shipping company, to a cruise terminal, but closer inspection revealed that the project would not be feasible due to cost and hence a new building will have to be erected instead.