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NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The $300-million expansion of the National World War II Museum is under way and is slated for completion by 2015.

Plans call for an advanced format theater, a restaurant and entertainment venue and will eventually include seven buildings on six acres.

The museum, called the D-Day Museum when it opened June 6, 2000, was designated by Congress as the official World War II Museum for the country in 2004 and subsequently changed its name.

Originally, it had been envisioned by historian Stephen E. Ambrose as a small facility to hold World War II mementos he was collecting from veterans.

When completed, the museum complex will house a variety of exhibits including a U.S. Freedom Pavilion, Great Campaigns of the War, a Land Sea and Air Pavilion to house major artifacts such as ships and planes, and a Liberation Pavilion, which will focus on the Holocaust and the advances in human rights and technology following the Allied victory in 1945.

The museum, at 945 Magazine St., was closed for three months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It hosted about 300,000 visitors a year.