CLEVELAND, Ohio – After achieving record attendance of nearly 865,000 in the fiscal year ended June 30, the Cleveland Museum of Art is well on its way toward achieving its goal of serving 1 million visitors a year.

The museum announced new attendance figures Friday, framing them as a sign of progress toward realizing the potential of the $320 million expansion and renovation completed in 2013.

“We are, I believe, nowhere near the capacity of this building to receive visitors,’’ said William Griswold, the museum’s director since 2014. “There’s room for future growth and we are determined to continue to increase attendance and to serve an ever larger and more diverse audience of Clevelanders and those from farther afield.”

The art museum is considered one of the leading institutions of its kind in America, and one of Cleveland’s cultural gems. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which falls second locally in museum attendance, reported having nearly 579,000 visitors in 2018, up from nearly 570,0000 the year before.

Attendance is only one measure of the art museum’s success, Griswold said, adding however that “it is a very real measure of impact. We’re really excited about this number.”

The museum unveiled a strategic plan in 2017 of reaching 1 million in attendance within a decade, reaching well beyond its then-average attendance around 630,000.

The new milestone of 864,754 represents a sharp increase of roughly 45% over fiscal year 2017-2018 attendance of 596,553 and a 12.3% increase over calendar year 2018 attendance of 769,435.

The popular Yayoi Kusama “Infinity Mirrors’’ exhibition, held in the summer of 2018 accounted for much of the big jump in the latter half of 2018. The show drew 120,000 visitors from all 50 states and 23 foreign countries.

The museum’s previous record for fiscal year attendance was roughly 705,171, achieved in 2015-16, which included part of the museum’s centennial year, and the popular exhibition “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse.”

Griswold cautioned that the museum attendance might not always increase from year to year.

“Those numbers will fluctuate,” he said, “but the trend will be a positive one.”

Beyond Kusama, Griswold credited the museum’s rising attendance to a varied blend of exhibitions, higher attendance by school children, and popular events including monthly CMA Mix gatherings, which combine drinks and music in the museum’s atrium, and which drew 17,000 participants.

Ticketed exhibitions are performing well, Griswold said. “Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern’’ drew nearly 53,000 visitors; “Renaissance Splendor,” a tapestry exhibition, had 33,000 visitors; and the recent exhibition on Shinto-inspired art from Japan exceeded the museum’s “stretch goal” by attracting 34,000 visitors.

Non-ticketed exhibitions on topics ranging from digitally-altered photography to the drawings of Kerry James Marshall and contemporary prints were attended by more than 60,000 visitors apiece.

The Marshall exhibition was part of the inaugural Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, which helped drive bigger numbers, Griswold said.

Attendance by 37,000 school children marked a 25% increase over the previous fiscal year, a level of performance the museum intends to repeat every year for five years, he said.

The new numbers represent greater enthusiasm by a younger demographic. Griswold said that 42% of visitors in the 2019 fiscal year were under 34.

“We’re going to continue to give a lot of emphasis to that number, because of course, those are the visitors of the future,” he said.

The museum drew 142,000 attendees for off-site programs including Parade the Circle and the annual Summer Stages concerts held at West 29th Street and Euclid Avenue in University circle in 2018.

Griswold said off-site attendance numbers are estimates. In-house attendance is counted through Traf-Sys, a technology that employs thermal imaging sensors to detect when visitors enter the building and selected galleries. The museum said the method is far more precise than stationing guards with hand-held clickers.

Online, the museum attracted more than 2.4 million individual visits to multiple online platforms including its website and ArtLens App. It generated more than 39 million impressions on its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, which have more than 210,000 followers, collectively.

The museum’s 2013 expansion and renovation designed by architect Rafael Vinoly increased its footprint 51% from 389,000 to 588,000 square feet, enabling that programs and activities that have driven higher attendance.

“People don’t come to a museum only to experience a building,” Griswold said, “but the building makes everything possible.”