Bids for foundation, steel and mechanical work will determine if the museum will stay within budget, said Jed Dingens, owner of Dingens Architects in Corunna, Mich., and a former MSU professor who has seen the museum’s most recent designs.

“They’ve already got the most important parts out to bid so they can budget correctly,” he said.

Exactly how much money has yet to be raised was not revealed by university officials.

“(It was) a decision made by people doing the fundraising (to not release exact fundraising estimates). It’s a big project and we’re on schedule, but (they’re) not going to release the numbers right now,” said Linda Stanford, associate provost for academic services.

Stanford declined to elaborate on the museum’s financial state.

Earlier this month, the university announced the creation of an advisory board to guide the progress of the museum in areas including leadership and financial sustainability.

“The advisory committee was another double-check that we’re on the right track,” Simon said.

Boards such as MSU’s are normal for most art museums, said Chai Lee, spokesman for the Art Institute of Chicago, in an e-mail.

“Every cultural institution has an advisory board,” he said. “The job of the (board) is to advise on all aspects of the life of the museum: approve acquisition of new art works for the permanent collection, advise on buildings and grounds issues, elect advisors for the museum, advise on museum finance.”

Original designs for the museum called for pleated walls and a pleated roof. After the initial designs were reviewed, concerns arose over what would happen when snow collected in the pleats. Officials are revising designs to be more “realistic,” but the pleated walls and roof will remain, Dingens said.

Designs are being examined to ensure functionality and elegance, Simon said.

“There’s been a lot of work done to make sure that the inside of the building works,” she said. “It’s not just an externally architectural statement, but that actually it’s a very functional building to display art.”

Despite redesigning her original plans, the museum’s architect, Zaha Hadid, is paid for the entire project and not every design, Stanford said. Stanford declined to say how much Hadid would be paid for her work, but said the architect’s fee comes out of the project’s $40 million budget.

“As the design develops, changes are made,” she said.

In-kind donations, or donations of actual materials, might mitigate the amount of money needed to be raised for building materials and furniture, Simon said.

“But we don’t know really how much,” she said.

The project might come in over budget, Dingens said.