RICHMOND, VA.-Topping out is the informal milestone that marks the installation of the top-most portion of a new structure. Then, construction will continue on the building's facades and interior, leading to an opening in 2009, museum officials say.

The project will add more than 165,000 square feet of space to the existing 320,000-square-foot museum.

The expansion will cost nearly $122 million.

Construction workers have finished pouring the expansion's grade-level concrete slab and have begun pouring for upper slabs. Concrete columns that will support the upper floors now appear above grade.

Some 10,000 cubic yards of concrete and 500 tons of steel will form the skeleton of the addition, which will eventually be clad in 10,000 square feet of insulated glass and 22,000 square feet of limestone, according to Alex Nyerges, VMFA's director.

"For some time now, the major portion of the construction work has been below grade, and our visitors have not been able to see much of what was going on. Now, the outlines of what will be a magnificent transformation of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are beginning to take shape. Our visitors are excited by what they can see now, as are our staff and trustees," Nyerges says.

The expansion will bring a 50 percent increase in the museum's gallery space, along with a new 4-acre sculpture garden. The museum's main entrance will be re-oriented to the Boulevard, one of Richmond's main thoroughfares. The interior of the new addition will establish circulation corridors that will connect the new and existing buildings so that visitors may circulate throughout the museum without retracing their steps. Museum officials say this will enable them to organize the VMFA collections in more meaningful ways.

VMFA broke ground for the largest expansion project in its history Nov. 20, 2005.

A new 600-car parking deck, also part of the expansion project, opened in late April. The deck is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, with extended hours during special events. The 170,000-square-foot deck accommodates twice as many automobiles as the museum's former surface lot. The majority of the surface lot is being reclaimed for the new sculpture garden, a portion of which will cover the roof of the parking deck with a landscaped slope for viewing outdoor events.