Facilities management and construction services provider Carillion has been named preferred bidder for the expansion works at Liverpool Football Club’s (LFC) Anfield stadium.

The work will include increasing capacity at Anfield’s Main Stand by 8,000, taking overall capacity to more than 54,000. Carillion will also be responsible for the associated public realm improvements.

Work on the project is expected to start later in 2014, subject to planning consent. It is expected to take approximately 20 months to complete and the construction costs are likely to be in the region of £75m.

The announcement is the latest step in LFC’s plans to increase its home capacity.

For years, the club pursued plans to build a stadium at the city’s Stanley Park – with former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett seeing a new stadium as paramount to the club’s future.

The proposals for a new stadium were finally laid to rest by current LFC owner John W. Henry, who took over from Hicks and Gillett in October 2010.

Henry has since concentrated on improving the existing stadium and in April 2014 revealed a phased, £150m (US$252m, €182m) expansion plan for Anfield Stadium which – when completed – will bring total stadium capacity up to 58,800.

The work on the stadium – designed by architectural firm KSS – is itself part of a larger £260m (US$436m, €316m) plan to transform the area around Anfield into a mixed-use leisure hub.

Proposals include the creation of a wide avenue through the adjacent Stanley Park and a new public square area with a memorial to the 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989.

Also included is a new primary school, health centre, 250 new homes and a 100-bedroom hotel as well as a new business hub.