Trade Center To Open

<H1>Trade Center To Open</H1><H3>By Carolyn Green</H3><I>Toronto </I>- When the new National Trade Centre opens its doors for business in March next year, the 1.1 million-square-foot facility will allow the city to host a vast spectrum of business events ranging from silicon chips to sheep. The $133 million complex will incorporate the existing 74-year-old Coliseum complex at Exhibition Place.

"It will enable us to move into the trade show market, something that we haven't actively pursued," said John Hamilton, communications manager for the Metro Toronto Convention and Visitors Association. At the same time, the new facility hopes to draw both group and transient corporate travel from Canada and the United States, particularly from the northeastern seaboard.

With the new space, which will add more than 530,000 square feet of exhibit space to another 570,000 square feet of renovated space, Toronto will have the third largest exhibition facility in North America, after Chicago's McCormick Place and the World Congress Center in Atlanta. It will feature 10 subdividable meeting rooms to complement its existing 14 rooms, a 100-seat theater and an underground link to the nearby Automotive Building, also used for large forums.

Although construction of the center coincides with a major expansion to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (see above story), Peter Moore, general manager of Exhibition Place, sees few conflicts between the projects. The convention center, he said, bids on events that might be held in Toronto once every decade, while the trade center will concentrate its marketing efforts on annual programs.