Chicago ? The millennium is finally dawning on Chicago’s lakefront.

Four years behind schedule, the $475 million Millennium Park, a pet project of Mayor Richard Daley’s, is officially set to open in July, with a fountain, elaborate gardens and a swooping, shimmering band shell by architect Frank Gehry.

Supporters expect the park to revitalize Chicago’s reputation for great architecture and culture and draw more people to Grant Park, the city’s “front yard” that stretches for a mile along Lake Michigan.

“We’re the city of big shoulders, and we like to make big, bold statements,” said Lois Weisberg, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs.

But the project has been beset by years of construction delays and cost overruns. It was initially budgeted at $150 million — less than one-third its actual cost — and was to open in 2000 as part of the city’s millennium celebration.

Although an ice rink and 1,500-seat theater for music and dance already are in use, most of the park remains hidden behind construction fences and tents.

The one major piece visible is Gehry’s contribution — a 120-foot high music pavilion with a stage surrounded by billowing ribbons of stainless steel and a trellis of curling steel pipes that will support the sound system high above the audience.

Ned Cramer, curator of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, predicts the city will be “wowed” by the opening, even if it is four years late.

“The sheer novelty of what’s happening there is guaranteed to do exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is to draw people’s attention,” Cramer said.

A groundskeeper works on the great lawn, spanned by a trellis of curved steel pipes, at Chicago's Millennium Park. Four years behind schedule, the 24-acre park near Lake Michigan is officially opening in July.

Daley proposed the park in 1998 on the 24-acre space between the lake and bustling Michigan Avenue.