Where the Lotus Shop currently resides (right – next to the red Buddah, by Liu Yonggang) — and where it will be, left, in the white ground floor of Belo Pavilion. Photo credit: Jerome Weeks

The Crow Collection of Asian Art is spreading its wings once again. Last year, the Arts District museum completed its takeover of the plaza around the Trammel Crow Center, creating its own sculpture garden there with some BIG sculptures.

This week, officials with the Crow announced the museum will fashion a new, larger entrance and add new gallery space. The new gallery will open in the fall for an exhibition, Fierce Loyalty,  which will feature the Crow’s recent acquisition, a suit of Japanese samurai armor from 1730. (It may open just about the time Samurai: Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection closes at the Kimbell — so it’s going to be a samurai autumn in North Texas.)

The new entrance and gallery will be where the museum store, the Lotus Shop, is currently — with the entrance now coming straight off the sidewalk. The shop itself will move across Olive Street to become a pop-up storefront in the Belo Pavilion, the shop tentatively re-named the Pearl. The museum’s plans are so new officials say they can’t release even a ballpark budget estimate.