The city of Miami has announced that it will move forward with a planned $500 million renovation of the Miami Beach Convention Center, which houses Art Basel in Miami Beach. Renovations are scheduled to start immediately following the fair’s 2015 edition and will continue into 2017. That means Art Basel’s 2016 edition will take place mid-renovation.

Work is expected to take place on a staggered schedule and fair officials have maintained that the 2016 edition will not be effected in any marked way. The renovations have reportedly been organized to accommodate the art fair in particular. Other conventions have been forced to find other locations, but Art Basel in Miami Beach will take place when the renovation of one of the convention center’s halls has been completed and before renovation of the other hall has begun.

Big changes are in the works, including a complete face-lift for the 1950s convention center’s facade. The plans, created by Denver’s Fentress Architects will transform the currently shopping-mall-like entryway into a sleek glass front punctuated by white-painted beams.

Though not the much more ambitious Rem Koolhaas–conceived original plans for the renovation, the face-lift will see the building come more into a form more in line with Art Basel’s home, the Messe Basel, which saw a recent addition by Herzog & de Meuron.

Several large public art installations will dot newly created green spaces surrounding the facility, the most prominent of which has been approved to cost an estimated $1.3 million. (A very Yayoi Kusama-esque installation is featured in one of the renderings of the site.)  Artists have been asked to submit proposals in an open call that closes on January 16.

Rending of the plaza surround the Miami Beach Convention Center
Via: Curbed Miami