KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Union Station officials are hoping a 65-foot, 140 million-year-old dinosaur will attract up to 100,000 more visitors a year and help pull the struggling Kansas City landmark out of the red.

A new, $1 million exhibit opened March 16 in Science City, the featured attraction at Union Station. Its centerpiece is the live reconstruction of Camarasaur dinosaur bones that were unearthed in Wyoming in 1997 by University of Kansas paleontology students.

Officials said the exhibit will be the largest dinosaur laboratory of its kind in the country, and the only one to show the entire process of preparing dinosaur fossils for exhibition.

Lyle, the name the Union Station dinosaur was given in honor of the owner of the property where its bones were found, was thought to have drowned in a flood.

A Kansas paleontology graduate student and Science City educators will clean up the bones, fix fractures and put them into molds to make solid plastic replicas. The replicas will be gradually assembled over 18 months to two years into a complete skeleton. Visitors will be able to see the bones and molds being prepared behind windows.

Sean O'Byrne, interim director of Union Station, said consultants estimate the dinosaur exhibit will boost paid admission at Science City by as much as 20 percent, or an annual increase of 80,000 to 100,000 visitors.

Union Station has been losing money since it reopened in 1999. The dinosaur exhibit is part of a redevelopment effort that includes the recent reopening of a planetarium, an upcoming rail museum and rental of space for the U.S. Postal Service and other offices. Details at www.unionstation.org.