Raleigh's $3 Billion Plus Renaissance

Over the next three years, here are some of the major projects transforming Raleigh into the premiere event destination for entertainment, learning and technology in the Southeast:

• New and Notable Restaurants
• City plaza
• Downtown Public Art Projects
• North Carolina Museum of Art Expansion
• Green Square Project at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
• New Terminal 2 at Raleigh-Durham International Airport
• New Contemporary Art Museum

Downtown Public Art Projects

• More than $7 million in projects, including $3 million dedicated to new convention center for shimmer wall, fountains and sculptures

North Carolina Museum of Art Expansion

• $75 million expansion featuring new galleries and public spaces built in direct relationship to the environment
• Designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners of New York
• Expected to increase gallery space by 40 percent and provide much-needed space for the Museum's growing permanent collection
• Existing Museum building will be transformed into an education and temporary exhibition center, and will also house administrative offices, art service, and storage
• Received an unprecedented gift of Auguste Rodin works from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation in November 2005 to be displayed in the new galleries
  Gift of 23 works of art, including 22 bronze sculptures by Rodin, makes the Museum one of the world's top Rodin repositories and the only cultural institution in the South with a major Rodin collection; as part of the expansion, the Museum will establish a Rodin study center and name a Rodin gallery and adjacent garden in honor of the Cantor Foundation
• Among the Rodin works are casts of the celebrated sculptures The Kiss and The Thinker , as well as Cybele, Monumental Torso of the Walking Man, The Three Shades, Monumental Head of Pierre de Wiessant, and Jean de Fiennes, Vetu , plus Camille Claudel's Bust of Rodin and a demonstration piece explaining the lost-wax casting process of Rodin's Sorrow
• Opening 2008 with construction starting in Fall 2006

Green Square Project at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

• Innovative $100 million partnership involving private and state agencies in development of entire city block in downtown Raleigh
• Four-story project features Nature Research Center , office space for Department of Environment and Natural Resources, new banking center for State Employees Credit Union and more
• Nature Research Center is an almost 100,000 sq. ft. investigative science center as NASA just awarded $500,000 toward a Space and Earth Observation Wing
• Will meet some of North Carolina 's economic and educational challenges by providing hands-on training for science, technology and problem solving
• Opening 2009

New Terminal 2 at Raleigh-Durham International Airport

• $570 million redevelopment and expansion and will become RDU's primary terminal
• Accommodates the ever-increasing number of travelers using RDU and features 32 to 35 gates by tripling the size of the existing terminal
• Efficiently guides passengers through ticketing, security, gates and baggage claim
• Eight major airlines and 12 regional carriers currently offer nearly 450 daily flights to 37 nonstop destinations
• Phase 1 of new terminal opening in 2008 with most of the new front hall along with north concourse with 17 gates
• Phase 2 of new terminal opening in 2010 with remaining portion of front hall, reconstruction of the central concourse and rebuilding of south concourse
• Airlines scheduled to use new terminal: Air Canada , American, American Eagle, United (now in Terminal C) and Continental, Delta, Northwest, US Airways, America West (moving from Terminal A)