This weekend marks a year since the groundbreaking of one of the city’s most anticipated projects, the $85 million expansion of the Crocker Art Museum. And those most associated with the project say that the expansion has been a success thus far and is right on schedule for its mid-2010 public grand opening.

John Davidson, safety coordinator and a foreman for the Crocker project, was among the associates of the project who recently spoke to The Union and confirmed the expansion’s positive status.

“We have weekly owner-contractor meetings and senior superintendent meetings with the Crocker people and the architect [Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects] comes out every couple months from New York, so we do have a published, permanent schedule that we have to stick to and we are on schedule at this point,” said Davidson, who works for the project’s general contactor, Rudolph and Sletten of Redwood City.

Wearing his usual orange reflective vest and blue protective hardhat and standing within the project site, Davidson provided additional details about the progress of the project, which will more than triple the size of the museum.

“We’ll have structural steel on the whole rest of this building in October,” said Davidson, as he pointed to the steel frame of the future building. “You’ll see three stories of structural steel wrapped all the way around that building. It’s going to look way different by the end of October.”

Davidson added that much work went into the underground portion of the project long before the steel frame of the facility was placed on the site.

“Out there in that south [area of the project], where the CUP, the Central Utilities Plant, is [located], you look and there are hundreds of electrical pipes, you’ve got [various] systems, you’ve got secures, you’ve got communication, there’s sewer, there’s hydronics for the water, and not only that, there’s all the gray beams and the pile caplets that tie the structure into the ground,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive. There’s a map in there on the wall that is just the footings.”

Sculpting the Future
Lial Jones, the museum’s director, said that construction on the building should be substantially completed by January 2010, but that an additional six months will be needed to move and install the Crocker collection inside the new facility.

The Crocker’s expansion, which has been referred to by the museum’s staff as a “masterpiece in the making,” has been considered a necessity for the museum for many years.

Planning for the project included the master planning process, between the city, museum officials and community members, from November 2000 to March 2003.

Following this process and the project’s concept design and schematic phases, construction drawings were produced from November 2005 to July 2007. And nearly a year ago on July 26, 2007, ground was broken for the project, just west of the historic Crocker Art Museum building.

Once completed, the museum’s new 125,000-square-foot, classic-contemporary-designed addition will enable the museum to showcase much more of its prized, permanent collection, the majority of which rests in the museum’s storage.

Presently, only four percent of the Crocker’s collection can be placed on display at the museum at any given time. By contrast, most art museums can display about 20 percent of their permanent collections at one time.

Jones expressed the museum board’s desire to acquire additional exhibit space to display the Crocker’s works.

“The museum has been out of space for a long time and the museum’s board realized that the only way that we could fulfill our mission is to add space,” Jones said. “The building was the greatest detriment. Our collection is in peril because of poor collection storage facilities and temperature and humidity controls, which are pretty much required and standard for art museums. [Our collecting facilities were] not up to standards. There were a number of reasons why we needed to expand our building.”

The Art of Growth
This expansion features an increase in the number of galleries from 13 to 40 galleries, a 300-seat auditorium for films, concerts and lectures, a café with indoor and outdoor seating and art classrooms.

Other features of the new addition will include a two-story atrium and reception space for events with seating for dinner, a courtyard, a museum store and meeting rooms.

Jones added that she additionally looks forward to the Crocker’s expansion, since it will also allow for the presentation of larger traveling exhibits that currently bypass Sacramento.

“Part of the expansion is we’re quadrupling the amount of space that we have for temporary exhibitions,” Jones said. “A lot of people [from Sacramento] go to the Bay Area to see temporary shows. We will have exactly the same amount of space for temporary shows as the new de Young [Museum in San Francisco]. We couldn’t accommodate large exhibitions in the building in the past, but we will with the new building.”

Although much time remains before these large exhibits begin to make their way to the new Crocker building, Kathleen Conaty, the museum’s marketing communications specialist, confirmed that the Crocker has already arranged for a large Norman Rockwell exhibit to be held at the new building in 2012.

Conaty, who recalls visiting the Crocker when she was studying California history as a fourth grade student at Mariemont Elementary School in Sacramento, added that she is very excited for the schoolchildren, who will visit the Crocker once the expansion has been completed.

“I’m excited for what future kids will get to enjoy here,” Conaty said. “They’ll be able to tour the museum, but they’ll be able to see so much more of our collection. I’m excited about all that Sacramento kids will be able to be exposed to and then just all the opportunities for hands-on art classes, seeing films, seeing concerts. They’re going to be able to do so much more.”

When asked to summarize her feelings about what the Crocker expansion means to the city of Sacramento, Jones referred to the future addition as “the most exciting thing in the museum’s history.”

“I believe that the new building will not only transform the Crocker, but I believe that it is a defining symbol for the new Sacramento,” Jones said. “I think people will look at the building, as I will, with great pride, as a symbol of how this city is seen far and wide and the importance of Sacramento on a national and international playing field.”