The Year of the Getty : More than a decade and about a billion dollars later, the state-of-the-art museum on the hill is looking at a grand opening by December 1997.

It’s 1997, and--yes!--the Getty Center is finally opening this year. But don’t hold your breath. The big event won’t happen until early December and there’s still a ton of work to do up there on the hill. Besides, what’s a few more months?

Way back in 1984, when the J. Paul Getty Trust issued its first press releases about building a fine arts center on a hilltop in Brentwood, construction was expected to begin early in 1986 and completion was planned for the first of 1988. But as the trust soon came to grips with the realities of building a multipurpose complex on a difficult site in an affluent neighborhood, the completion date became far less important than getting the project right.

Estimated costs also changed drastically, escalating from $100 million plus in 1984 to $733 million in 1994. Getty officials now say when the last check is written for final details of the complex, the cost will be about $1 billion.

Meanwhile, the Getty’s calendar is packed with events leading to temporary closure of the museum in Malibu, relocation of various branches of the trust and full operation at the new site by the end of the year.

Following are a few highlights:

Early January: Harold M. Williams, president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust, inaugurates the Getty Center’s auditorium with an address to Getty staff.

Jan. 9-10: The Getty Center hosts its first national conference, “Educating for the Workplace Through the Arts,” sponsored by the Getty Education Institute with Business Week magazine. About 500 educators, business leaders, national policymakers and arts professionals will attend.

Mid-January: Installation of plumbing for artist Robert Irwin’s garden project at the Brentwood site begins.

Jan. 14: The Getty Museum in Malibu opens its final photography exhibition, “The Eye of Sam Wagstaff,” exploring the vision of an intrepid collector whose holding is a cornerstone of the Getty’s photography collection.

Jan. 21: Opening day of “Manuscript Illumination of the 13th Century,” the Getty’s last manuscript exhibition at the Malibu facility, featuring gold-leaf paintings from Byzantium, England, Flanders, France, Germany and Italy.

Late January: In the new museum’s decorative arts section, work proceeds from paneled rooms to galleries with textile-covered walls. In galleries devoted to other collections, floors are finished and work on walls begins.

February: Already ensconced at its new offices, the Getty Education Institute selects banners designed by middle school students across the country to illustrate their communities for the planned “Wave Your Banner” display at the Getty Center’s opening.

February through April: The museum’s staff moves to Brentwood and settles into offices there.

Spring: Azaleas for Irwin’s garden go through their third blooming season at nursery facilities on museum grounds in Malibu. They will be planted in Brentwood later in the year.

Spring through summer: As construction of each gallery is completed, the rooms are sealed and turned over to the museum staff. Curators and technical specialists begin installing the collection, attending to every detail, from the precise position of artworks to labels and lighting.

March 16-19: The Getty Information Institute sponsors “Museums and the Web,” an international conference exploring relationships between museums and the World Wide Web, at an as yet undesignated site downtown.

March 30: Last day to see paintings at the Getty Museum in Malibu. Antiquities remain on view to early July.

April: The Getty Research Institute launches a new series of bibliographies and dossiers with the publication of “Russian Modernism,” a comprehensive bibliography of the institute’s Russian modernist holdings.

April 6: Final day of the temporary exhibition program in Malibu. Ending are three shows from the museum’s collections: “Figure Drawing,” “The Eye of Sam Wagstaff” and “Manuscript Illumination of the 13th Century.”

May 2: Last day to see “They saw a very great future here,” photographs from Central Los Angeles by Camilo Jose Vergara,” the final exhibition at the Getty Research Institute’s facility in Santa Monica.

Summer: Installation of the open shelving system at the Research Institute’s new home begins.

July 6: Last day to visit the museum in Malibu until 2001, when the renovated, Roman-style villa will reopen as a center for the display, conservation and interpretation of ancient art. Focusing on the Getty’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, the revised museum will promote a deeper understanding of comparative archeology and culture.

Mid-July: Museum educators and docents shift their programs from the museum in Malibu to Brentwood, focusing on community orientation and outreach.

Fall: The museum staff fine-tunes installations of the collection and prepares for public programs. The Research Institute installs its collection of 750,000 books on the history of art, architecture, ethnography and science, plus 2 million photographs and special collections of sketchbooks, archives and artists’ correspondence.

October or November: The Getty starts taking visitors’ parking reservations for the new center. The system is expected to be discontinued in six months or so, after the initial rush has subsided.

November: The Education Institute hosts Kids Congress, a national one-day teleconferenced event for and by children on arts education, featuring community banners made in classrooms around the United States.

Dec. 6: The Getty Center opens to the public. A series of invitational events for community and professional groups begins. The new museum unveils installations of the Getty’s collections of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, drawings, prints, manuscripts and photographs. Three special shows inaugurate the temporary exhibition program: “Classical Art as Artifact,” a collaborative look at antiquities through the lens of conservation, scholarship and education; “The Making of the Getty Center,” focusing on people who contributed to the design, construction and operation of the campus; and “Responding to Ruins,” an examination of the role of ruins in modern cultural life.

The Research Institute’s opening exhibition is “Fire Into Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Early Modern Europe,” exploring portrayals of European fireworks displays from the late 16th to the early 19th centuries in the institute’s collection of prints, books, drawings and manuscripts.

Dec. 8: School group visits begin. The museum will host school groups on weekdays, 9-11 a.m., except on holidays.