The Palais des Festivals in Cannes – venue for the iconic film festival and a host of other events – is to be enlarged as part of a multifaceted project that aims to make the French city into an "audiovisual Silicon Valley".

The €500m (US$556m, £432m) project will add another storey to the building to house a 500-seat theatre, as well as renovating the Salon des Ambassadeurs, which is used for hosting receptions and exhibitions.

Also included in the project is the creation of a technology park that would feature a 1,200-student university campus dedicated to film, television, video games and web creation, a 12-screen multiplex cinema that would house the biggest screen in southwestern France and an international film museum.

The cinema is due to open in June 2020, while the film museum, which will focus on the history of moviemaking, the Cannes festival and special effects, is hoped to be ready for its first visitors by 2025.

Cannes mayor David Lisnard announced the project at an event in Paris last week. Lisnard revealed at the event that €175m (US$195m, £151m) of the project budget has so far been raised or committed.