The $104.5 million for a face-lift for the Jefferson-designed statehouse may seem like chump change compared with taxpayer spending on other improvements in and around Capitol Square.

Since the 1990s, the state has shelled out at least $130 million to restore, expand, refit or purchase seven buildings -- some of them architectural gems -- at the seat of government.

Many projects were planned and carried out in anticipation of the Jamestown quadricentennial. Prettying up for guests, such as Queen Elizabeth II, was an excuse to modernize dated, and in some cases potentially dangerous, digs.

More work is planned, perhaps costing an additional $400 million. That could push the total price tag for improvements at the core of the Capitol complex to nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars.

The Capitol, of course, is the centerpiece. Among the most recognized structures in the world, it is an office building and museum, one that now includes a 27,000-square-foot addition beneath the sloping south lawn.

The Capitol reopens to the public tomorrow morning, hours after crews clear the last of the detritus from a private gala tonight for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, General Assembly members and other state officials.

Five months late and $5 million over budget, the two-year Capitol renovation extends into the new century the life of a working building that has been in use, almost nonstop, since 1789.

The Capitol's principal occupant, the General Assembly, has operated since 2005 from the Patrick Henry Building, formerly the Old State Library. The legislature's interim chambers in the New Deal-era edifice will become meeting and reception space.

Another structure that's been renamed, the Old Finance Building, now goes by the Oliver W. Hill Building, in honor of the civil-rights titan who turns 100 tomorrow.

The renaming of the 19th-century building is subtle but significant. It houses the Compensation Board, the agency that Virginia's segregationist political machine used to maintain control of local government.

Still in need of sprucing up, according to some lawmakers: the 11-story General Assembly Building. Because of a House-Senate standoff over this project, improvements are only talked about.

The state's landlord, the Department of General Services, says there are four options for renovating the glass-and-steel-skinned General Assembly Building. They range in cost from $116.8 million to $192.5 million.

Another pricey project on the drawing board: the Ninth and Eighth Street Office Buildings. These crumbling towers housed Cabinet secretaries and the budget office. They're still home to DGS and the Board of Elections.

The budget includes $4.5 million to tear down the Eighth Street Office Building, formerly the Murphy Hotel. A local preservation group has tried to block the demolition.

The Ninth Street Office Building, once the Hotel Richmond, would be restored. Wrapped around it would be a modern tower, filling out an entire city block.

It's not clear what this would cost. The Department of General Services expects that it would be more than $100 million -- money that's yet to be appropriated by the legislature.