It's amazing just how fast things can move at a construction site when the clock's ticking and the deadline is near.

"I was standing in here last week, and when I looked around, I thought, 'No way,'" said Bryan Morry, the executive director of the Hall at Patriot Place, as he led media members Tuesday through a brief tour of the building that will shortly house the Patriots' hall of fame.

The "Wayne's World" response of "Way!" would be appropriate in this case. Things are indeed moving quickly at Patriot Place - not just for the retail and entertainment venues that are starting to open in rapid-fire succession, but also in the finishing stages of construction for the shrine to all things football in the building closest to the existing stadium.

The Hall is almost ready, and it's going to be spectacular.

There are three levels to the building, and the first floor, containing the new and improved Patriots Pro Shop, is expected to be open next week. The museum itself, filled with interactive exhibits and more high-tech displays than NASA's Mission Control in Houston, will follow shortly after. But the target date of the most importance right now is Thursday, Sept. 18, when a full weekend of festivities will kick off this latest stage in the evolution of the Patriots.

It's almost a rebirth of sorts for the franchise in general, the planned series of ceremonies that will conclude with the "re-induction" of 12 members of the Patriots Hall of Fame and the induction of the most recent selection. Tight end Ben Coates was voted in by fans this July following his nomination and that of runners-up Jim Nance and Jon Morris by a 25-member committee of media members, team officials and former players who met at Gillette Stadium in April.

"To see everything that's happening now and to look back to when I played 26 years ago, it's awesome," said Andre Tippett, Patriots Hall of Fame member and recent Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, who will participate in the ceremony along with the other nine surviving members of the team's hall of fame. "We're trying to bring back a little bit of what they do in Canton (Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame) in what we're going to do here in New England, and give it that special thrill."

Details of the events leading up to the induction ceremony will be released soon, including a "kickoff ceremony" on that Thursday and an "enshrinement gala" the next night. But the climax will be an open-air ceremony in the plaza between the Hall at Patriot Place and the stairway leading to the CBS Scene restaurant - and seriously, if you haven't been to Gillette Stadium in a while and don't know what I'm talking about, please go to www.patriot-place.com and you'll get a better picture than I can provide without adding 20 extra inches to this piece.

At that ceremony, scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 - the day before the Patriots play the Dolphins at Gillette Stadium - the team will assemble the living members of its Hall of Fame for their own re-enshrinement and to welcome Coates to their ranks. The ceremony will be free of charge and open to the public, which should ensure a substantial crowd.

They'll be entering a different world - especially the members from the pre-NFL era, such as Babe Parilli, Gino Cappelletti and Nick Buoniconti, whose memory of the old Boston Patriots include bouncing from Nickerson Field to Fenway Park to Boston College to Harvard Stadium, and watching game films projected onto bedsheets that were tacked to the walls of hotel rooms, and so on. This is strictly first class and top shelf, which is plainly evident the second you approach the building and spy the three-story-high banner-like illuminated pylons that feature video projections of the enshrinees.

Tippett said those are his favorite features of the new museum.

"I think they're going to be really cool," the former outside linebacker said. "And just looking at some of the memorabilia and some of the stuff the people are sending from around the country and from around here in the New England area - the old helmets, and Gino Cappelletti sending in an old letterman jacket that the Patriots had. I didn't think the Patriots made letterman jackets!"

Many of the exhibits are already functional, and once the Patriots' Hall of Fame opens to the public, Morry estimates it will take at least "an hour and a half to two" to tour the facility, "although you could spend up to four hours watching all the video if you chose to."

Admission will be reasonable - $10 for adults, $5 for children - plus there will be special rates for group tours. Plans are currently to open the facility from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on no-game Sundays, with longer weekday hours for vacation periods. Unfortunately, the Hall at Patriot Place won't be open to the general public on the days when the largest samples of the general public will be on site. The plan is to open the Hall only to special tours and official functions on game days because it simply isn't large enough to accommodate the lines of fans that would congregate from among a crowd of 68,756 football fans.

But that wasn't the point of Robert Kraft's vision to create a "lifestyle and entertainment destination" at Patriot Place. The idea was to make Gillette Stadium a place where people would want to go year-round, not just on 10 game-day weekends.

The Hall at Patriot Place will also serve a dual purpose, Tippett said - both to embrace those who excelled on behalf of the Patriots, and also to show younger players that when they become Patriots, they are becoming part of a proud football history, a feeling that maybe Tippett didn't have back when he was the Patriots' second-round draft pick in 1992.

"As the new guys get voted in, I'll be able to go and shake their hands and tell them, 'welcome home,'" he said. "We want guys that are inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame to feel like they're back home now, that 'this is my spot, this is where I played and I've had a great career.'"

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.