CLEVELAND — The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame begins opening its $135 million expansion on Sunday, Nov. 22, when the new Haslam Auditorium welcomes the public as a free community space on Cleveland’s lakefront. The triangular addition is the museum’s largest construction project since its original building rose on North Coast Harbor, and it adds 50,000 square feet beside architect I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid, according to Cleveland Magazine.
The Nov. 22 date is a first opening, not the whole unveiling. The Rock Hall clarified that only the Haslam Auditorium portion opens later this month, Cleveland Scene reported in a Nov. 5 update. Cleveland Magazine reports a community day is slated for Nov. 22, and Scene reports the space will be free to enter — the museum’s new public-facing front door.
Visitors will feel the change before they see an artifact. The entrance shifts into the new building, steps from Erieside Avenue, where guests pass a lakeside garden and enter the Haslam Atrium to a panoramic Lake Erie view, with giant steps inviting them to linger, according to Cleveland Scene. “It’s a wow statement,” Rock Hall President and CEO Greg Harris told Cleveland Scene on a recent tour. “You come in, see the lake and feel that music is playing. This place is alive,” Harris told Scene…