FOR years Southampton has been crying out for an attraction to give the city its elusive "Wow" factor.

Now that dream looks set to become a reality with city chiefs planning to build a multi-million-pound heritage centre with the tragic tale of Titanic as its central theme.

City chiefs are planning to give the green light to a project which could see a £4.6m heritage centre built in Southampton's lower High Street.

The centre is likely to be completed by around 2010 - two years before the centenary of the tragic sinking of the massive liner.

The Titanic exhibition will form the centrepiece of the commemorations to the tragedy which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people - 500 of whom were from the city.

Around 100,000 visitors a year are likely to be attracted to the museum, which will feature key elements from the Titanic story.

City bosses are hoping to use the museum to show artefacts recovered from the wreck which lies nearly two and a half miles under the north Atlantic and was first discovered by undersea explorer Bob Ballard back in the 1980s.

It would give the city a massive boost in its hunt for the so called "Wow" factor - a search by city leisure chiefs to create an iconic image for the city which would put Southampton on the world map.

The huge new museum would be spread across several floors taking up around 2,500 square metres of space with a massive 1,925m of gallery space. It will be situated in lower High Street.

The Titanic exhibition would form the centrepiece of the much heralded "Story of Southampton" centre which would be themed around Southampton's maritime past.

The museum would also show visitors other elements from Southampton's maritime history including its association with the city's other great liners such as Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth by merging with the city's existing Maritime Museum.

But it would have as its central theme the story of the greatest peacetime maritime disaster in history and which has captured the imagination of generations.

City leisure chiefs believe around £248,000 a year could be generated each year.

City council leisure boss Councillor Peter Wakeford is set to authorise a £60,000 study into the planned "Story of Southampton" centre within the next three weeks.

He will also be initiating a five-year study into how Southampton can make the most of its heritage by linking the city's other museums including the city's aviation museum, Solent Sky, and the city's medieval walls.

Other attractions which will be marketed by the campaign would be the city's Gods House Tower, the Medieval Merchant's House, the Tudor House Museum, the Old Town, the Town Walls and the Bargate.

The attractions would be sold with so called "through-ticketing" - a device where visitors can buy one ticket which will allow them access to Southampton's many attractions.

Cllr Wakeford said that the museum would be opened in time for the 100th anniversary commemorations of the Titanic tragedy in April 1912 and would offer a first-class visitor experience.

He said: "We would certainly expect to see the existing maritime museum re-located and expanded including the Titanic.

"People who own artefacts will be contacted and we will need support of these people. We would certainly want the museum open within the next five years - in time for the Titanic anniversary."

Ambitious plans to build a "Story of Southampton" museum were first revealed in the Daily Echo nearly two years ago.

At one point, city leisure bosses wanted to site the maritime element of the museum on Southampton's waterfront - possibly at the redeveloped Town Quay or ABP's berth 101. However, in a report due to be presented to the city council's cabinet on February 7, the idea of a single site for the heritage centre was rejected due to the huge costs involved in buying the sites.

City council leader Councillor Adrian Vinson said the site in lower High Street was a "huge advantage" to the council because city chiefs already owned it.

He said: "Clearly, there is a huge advantage in a site which the council owns. We are simply doing the Story of Southampton on a multiple site rather than on a single site.

"It is an important part of our city's history and associations which will certainly bring interest and attention to the city."

Peter Boyd Smith-owner of Cobwebs ocean liner memorabilia in Northam Road, Southampton and a Titanic specialist welcomed the idea of a museum with a significant Titanic exhibition incorporated in it.

He said: "This is ideal for Southampton, but I will believe it when I see it. There have been so many ideas in the past but nothing has ever come from them.

"I work closely with the museum in Orlando and they have "Titanic - the Exhibition". That's a good exhibition and of the same quality Southampton will have to achieve."

But, he added, a lot of marketing would have to be done to draw in the crowds.

He said: "If the idea is to cash in on the cruise ship passengers, I think they have it wrong. When you say there is a museum, 90 per cent of passengers never go to it because they don't have time. It is going to have to be well marketed both here and abroad."

Alan Jones, director of Solent Sky, formerly the Hall of Aviation, doubted that the building would live up to the "Wow" factor hype and added that the idea of a single heritage centre on one site was what had originally been planned by city chiefs.

He said: "The jury is still out as far as I am concerned."

Titanic's youngest survivor has spoken out in support of a permanent reminder of the ship. Millvina Dean was just nine weeks old when the luxury liner struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic she lost her father in the collision.

But today the 92-year-old said she was in favour of the exhibition and that it was just unfortunate she did not have any memorabilia to offer. She said: "I'm amazed that this is being planned as usually I am one of the first to be told about anything to do with the Titanic.

"Other places have been much more interested in the Titanic especially the Americans. But Southampton has always been an outsider. I find this strange considering so many passengers and crew were from this area."

Miss Dean, who lives in Woodlands in the New Forest, was just a tot when her parents uprooted from Hampshire and boarded the Titanic for a new life in the USA.

When the ship struck the iceberg she was put on a lifeboat with her mother and brother - but her father went down with the ship.

She said: "The exhibition would be a nice idea and a chance for us to remember the ship and those who died. I unfortunately have nothing to offer the exhibition because we lost everything on the ship."