CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wants to capitalize on popular renovations and rising attendance by expanding its landmark building at North Coast Harbor.

The museum is seeking a renewable lease on an acre of city-owned land that separates it from the Great Lakes Science Center. The property is a grassy field with a tree-lined walkway that slopes 20 feet down from Erieside Avenue to the water’s edge.

The Rock Hall would use the land for a roughly 50,000 square-foot expansion that could include room for exhibits, special events, education, object conservation and research.

The expansion would also include a glass-enclosed, year-round connection along the harbor’s waterfront promenade that would link the Rock Hall to the Science Center.

Rock Hall visitors who park in the Science Center’s garage in winter must now brave a chilly walk between the two museums.

“We are excited that this will ultimately form a museum campus by connecting with our neighbor so people can move completely indoors between the two museums,” said Greg Harris, the Rock Hall’s president and CEO since 2012.

Kirsten Ellenbogen, president and CEO of the Science Center, said she was thrilled by the plan in part because it would realize a vision both institutions have had since they were built in the 1990s.

Cleveland architect Robert P. Madison designed a connection back then, but the Rock Hall wasn’t able to follow through then.

“This is just completing a vision that’s been there all along,” Ellenbogen said. “Greg is doing the hard work. He’s the one pushing this through with his board and his donors.’’

The museum’s expansion would replace a plan by developer Dick Pace, who envisioned a 10-story hotel between the Rock Hall and Science Center.

Pace said he withdrew his proposal recently when the Rock Hall and other stakeholders pushed back. He said he recognized that “they were right; it was too much building to squeeze into that site.”

Pace said he now plans a six-story, 100-foot-high hotel at Dock 32 north of the Science Center on part of an 18-acre parcel he aims to develop north of FirstEnergy Stadium.

In 2014, the city chose Pace’s Cumberland Development and Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. to lease and develop lakefront land around North Coast Harbor.

Recently completed projects include the Nuevo restaurant and Harbor Verandas Apartments, just north of the Rock Hall.

Those projects helped convince the Rock Hall it was essential to capture the land between it and the Science Center to avoid being landlocked and unable to expand, Harris said.

On April 5, the city’s planning commission unanimously approved the Rock Hall’s request for the land lease, which will go to Council later this month for approval, Harris said. The lease would extend to 2042, with renewable 49-year terms thereafter, the Rock Hall said.

At the April 5 meeting, City Planning Director Freddy Collier praised the Rock Hall for enabling an expansion that would preserve public space around the harbor.

A preliminary design by DLR Group / Westlake Reed Leskosky of Cleveland shows that the Rock Hall expansion would be a curvy, earth-hugging structure built into the hillside between the Rock Hall and Science Center.

The design – which will evolve, Harris said – will avoid blocking views from City Hall to North Coast Harbor, and from the lake to the city.

It will also avoid blocking key views of architect I.M. Pei’s iconic Rock Hall building, including its triangular glass lobby and a mushroom stalk structure that houses The Power of Rock Experience Connor Theater.

The theater is part of $20 million in improvements installed under Harris, which include new food service and ticketing operations, a renovated store, live summertime concerts on the Rock Hall’s entry plaza, and a monumental sign installed there that proclaims Long Live Rock in large red letters.

Upcoming improvements include a revamp of the Rock Hall’s main exhibit on the history of rock and roll, located beneath the building’s entry plaza. That project is scheduled to begin in 2020. Harris said planning for the new installation would happen in tandem with plans for the expansion.

The Rock Hall improvements have helped boost attendance to over 570,000 annually, and has fired up donors, Harris said.

The museum has raised $56 million for its projects, including the $20 million spent so far. Harris declined to estimate how much the proposed expansion might cost.

Timing of construction depends on completing the design and fundraising, Harris said. Fundraising will also include money for an endowment to build on $32 million in existing reserves, which are largely restricted in purpose.

Major contributions so far include $5 million from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, $2 million from the State of Ohio, $10 million from KeyBank that supports free admission for Cleveland residents, $4 million from PNC Bank and $9 million from philanthropist Christopher Connor.

“It’s incredibly exciting and an honor to be associated with the [expansion] project,” Harris said. “We’re doing things at the museum that they dreamed about 20 years ago.’’