$100M Rock & Roll Hall of Fame expansion project given greenlight

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was given a resounding go-ahead Friday to move forward with its long-anticipated $100 million expansion project.

The institution was cleared to break ground on its 50,000-foot expansion plan later in 2023 after the Cleveland Planning Commission unanimously approved its schematic design plans.

The massive project aims to evolve the experience for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame visitors and provide the opportunity to amp up its connection to its Ohio homeland.

“We’re in our 28th year, we’ve had 14 million guests and we’ve had a $2 billion economic impact to the region,” said Rock Hall CEO Greg Harris at the start of the presentation to the commission.

“One of the reasons for being here today is because we want to expand the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to better serve our community, to better grow our audiences, and to have a more positive effect on Cleveland.”

The massive project will roughly double the size of the original pyramid-shaped museum, completed in 1995 under architect I.M. Pei.

The addition is set to include a new entry lobby and public space; an acoustically-designed and sub-divisible performance area, a classroom, and a 1,350-person event venue, while still emphasizing the museum’s classic archives, architects from PAU said.

Additionally, the shape of the revamped Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will serve its own purpose: each of the new triangle-shaped will point outward to the city of Cleveland, Lake Erie and the museum to metaphorically pull the forces together.

In that spirit, the addition will be clad in black steel and granite in an effort to represent Cleveland’s industrial past.

The expansion will also include a “museum campus” alongside the neighboring Great Lakes Science Center, with public greenspace that allows visitors to enjoy the lakefront.

“As part of this project, we’re going to be investing a lot of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame resources into making the greenspace a far more user-friendly public park, for the whole community,” Harris said.

“It’s going to have a gentle 5% or less grade, so it’s ADA accessible from the lake up to the street, and it’s going to give the public a chance to really engage with the lakefront in a way they can’t do it at present.”

The project has been in the works since 2019 since architects proposed bringing the landmark into the 21st century.