NOVI, Mich. -- A leader of Detroit's auto show has met with suburban officials about moving the annual event from Cobo Center to Novi in 2011.

The Detroit Auto Dealers Association said it will hold the show at Cobo Center through 2010 because that's when the contract expires.

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The Detroit City Council blocked a $288 million deal to improve the aging venue and transfer it to a regional authority.

Douglass Fox is co-chairman of the North American International Auto Show's leadership committee and attended Monday's meeting.

Fox said Oakland County deputy executives Gerald Poisson and Robert Daddow and a representative of Rock Financial Showplace also met. Fox said they discussed expanding Rock Financial Showplace to host the show.

Local 4 learned it would cost about $150 million to expand the showplace nearly 1-million square feet to make it big enough to accommodate the North American International Auto Show.

Local officials have said they think the Auto Show will go out of the state before it moves to the suburbs.

"Realistically, I think that if the North American Auto Show leaves, they'll won't be going to Oakland County, they'll be going to Chicago," said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.

But Fox disagreed. He said going to Chicago or L.A. is the organizers last option because vendors are used to coming to Michigan and have been coming for decades.

The North American International Auto Show brings nearly $500 million to the local economy and creates 16,000 jobs a year.