Work has started on a £30m project to extend Oxford University's landmark Said Business School.

Yesterday, more than 100 dignitaries attended a ground-breaking ceremony on the site of the extension to the business school, in Frideswide Square, next to the city's railway station.

The three-storey building will occupy an area previously used as a car park for the school.

The extension is expected to be ready to receive its first students in 2010, eight years after the original building was officially opened.

The business school is regarded as one of the leading specialist business colleges in the world.

Wafic Said, the Syrian-born businessman who gave £20m to endow the business school, said: "It's only ten years since the first ground-breaking ceremony and yet here we are in a world-class school, with facilities to match.

"We're about to commence an important extension, which will bring executive education right into the heart of Oxford and the business school.

"It will be another giant step towards our goal of making the Said Business School one of the top 10 business schools in the world."

More than 500 students take courses at the school each year.

The new building will contain three lecture theatres, seminar rooms and social spaces including a bar, restaurant and roof terrace.

The design of the building was altered following public consultation. The north and south facades were repositioned and there will be extra cycle parking.

The school's dean of executive education, Gay Haskins, said: "The new building will play a critically important role in enhancing our facilities, providing plentiful seminar rooms, flexible teaching space, lecture theatres, a club room and dining rooms."

Business school dean Prof Colin Mayer said starting work on an extension just six years after the building was opened was testament to its success.

Tony Joyce, the chairman of Oxford Civic Society, said: "I'm very pleased with the building. I think it will make a good gateway to the city.

"It's a very fitting addition to what we have already got."

For more information about the project, see sbs.ox.ac.uk/phase2