The Glasgow Film Theatre is slated to undergo a $2.6m (£1.6m) renovation project that will allow for growth of the city’s film festival.

The project is set for completion by the end of 2013.

Plans for the project include adding a third screen with a 60-seat cinema to accommodate audience demand, improvements for disabled building access and renovations to move the box office to the foyer.

The Glasgow City Council has allocated a $800,000 (£500,000) grant to the project, which is also receiving $160,000 (£100,000) from Creative Scotland.

The project will also supported by The Robertson Trust, The Gannochy Trust, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Landfill Community Trust, along with the Theatre’s reserves.

“Glasgow Film Festival is the fastest-growing film festival in the UK with admissions of over 35,000 in 2012 and, with GFT as its hub, our new cinema screen will allow us to increase our Festival audiences as we look towards our tenth anniversary in 2014,” Glasgow Film chair Bailie Liz Cameron said of the expansion.

The current GFT site was established in 1974, but the address has been a working cinema since 1939. It is the only independent cinema in the West of Scotland that broke 200,000 admissions in 2011-12.

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