As Terrence Riley steps down as director of Miami Art Museum, there are a few things he will not miss.

The endless commission meetings.

The begging for money.

The penny pinching to make ends meet.

Riley delivered the news to museum staff Monday morning that he is leaving the top post at MAM to return to his first love, architecture.

His announcement caught Miami's arts community by surprise, but Riley said he is keeping some of the best parts of the job by remaining as a consultant for MAM's new $220 million home, to be built in Bicentennial Park.

``You're either on the horse or off the horse,'' said Riley, who submitted his resignation letter to MAM trustees last week. ``At this point, it was either to stay another four years or to leave at a juncture that worked very well for me and very well for the project.''

Riley steps down as director at a critical moment: The museum's leaders are preparing to turn architectural ideas and drawings into a building on one of the last pieces of publicly owned waterfront in downtown Miami.

Aaron Podhurst, MAM's board chairman, said he will form a search committee for a new director but emphasized that Riley will remain in Miami to help shepherd the project.

MAM's new building has completed the design stage, Podhurst said, and is scheduled to break ground in late spring or early summer 2010. He projects the 120,000-square-foot building will open in 2013.

``Now we start actually doing contractual work with the contractors, subcontractors and all that kind of stuff,'' Podhurst said.

Podhurst said Riley will help MAM ``on the city and county relations, and the science museum and all the things you have to put together in Museum Park to do this.''

He declined to provide details of the consulting contract, such as Riley's pay. But, Podhurst said of the agreement, ``It's fair to Terry. It's fair to the museum.''

An architect by training, Riley joined MAM in March 2006. Though he'll remain in Miami, he longed to return to practicing architecture with his firm, Keenan/Riley Architects, based in New York.

MAM's board of trustees recruited Riley from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he had served as chief curator for architecture and design, and played a key role in MOMA's $858 million renovation and expansion.

Riley was hired with a mandate: convince collectors that MAM will have a new building, and grow the museum's collection to merit the higher profile; that the museum staff would be enhanced; and that MAM would become a partner with collectors.

Riley said new leadership may pave the way for future partnerships.

``A new director who could devote as much energy to building the collection as I have to building the building,'' he said, ``not only will make this a great structure, but will make it a great museum.''

In leading the new museum project, Riley helped commission the Pritzker Prize-winning architectural firmof Herzog & de Meuronto design the new MAM,negotiated with city and county officials for funding and raised money from private donors.

But he also butted heads with critics of public funding for the museum, such as Miami art collector Martin Z. Margulies.

Margulies said MAM will have a difficult time raising money, particularly in the wake of the recession.

``The biggest museums, and the best museums that have great collections, they're cutting staff,''

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