The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is preparing to unveil a fully revamped theater, lobby, and plaza after landing the largest private donation in its 125-year history: a $20 million gift from the Sturm Family Foundation. The new Sturm Family Wing folds together a redesigned outdoor plaza, an updated lobby and an overhauled theater space, transforming how visitors move between the museum's indoor exhibits and its City Park surroundings.
The record-setting contribution funds what the museum has called its East Wing Project, according to 9News. As reported by CBS Colorado, the project revitalized the museum's historic theater, lobby, and plaza to create a fluid connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. The finished wing includes the Sturm Family Plaza, the Sturm Infinity Lobby and the Sturm Infinity Theater, the museum says, featuring a modern bar, an outdoor gathering area, and custom ceiling lighting made up of 1,700 fiber-optic lights arranged in a starfield pattern.
A Theater With Decades of History
The venue at the heart of the new wing has been reinvented before. It originally opened in 1940 as the Phipps Auditorium, converted into the Phipps IMAX Theater in 1983, and underwent a comprehensive laser projection and accessibility overhaul in 2023 that rebranded it as the Infinity Theater, per Wikipedia's entry on the museum. Those 2023 upgrades included a level stage for lectures, an enhanced sound system, and a hearing induction loop, laying the groundwork for the space now folded into the Sturm wing.
Electrical contractor Encore Electric completed the installation work on the new wing in July, according to the company's own project account. The museum plans to mark the completion with a free community night on Tuesday, September 1, running from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., featuring live science demonstrations, music, outdoor dining and a new film premiere, the museum says. General admission to the museum is free for that evening event.
The Family Behind the Record Gift
The Sturm Family Foundation was established in 2000 by Denver businessman Donald L. Sturm, who died in 2024, and Susan M. Sturm. The foundation holds over $110 million in assets and awards more than $7.8 million annually to Colorado educational and civic institutions, according to a funder profile from Hinchilla, and is currently led by President and CEO Emily Sturm Ehrens.
This is not the family's first major capital investment in Denver's cultural and educational institutions. The foundation previously donated $6 million toward the Denver Art Museum's North Building renovation and $10 million to Arapahoe Community College, the same Hinchilla profile notes, and has also funded major endowments at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.
Part of a Larger Museum Expansion
The Sturm gift lands amid a broader capital growth phase at the museum. A separate $30 million gift from Cathy and Peter Dea is funding an overhaul of the museum's Gems & Minerals Hall, expanding the gallery footprint by 50 percent ahead of a planned 2027 reopening, as per Hoodline.
Before the Sturm donation, the museum's largest-ever gift was an anonymous $25 million contribution received in December 2021, which established an endowment for collections conservation. Ninety percent of that 2021 gift was placed into an endowed fund dedicated to preserving archaeological and paleontological artifacts, according to reporting at the time.
A Leadership Transition Alongside the New Wing
The wing's completion also coincides with a major change of the guard at the museum. President and CEO George Sparks, who oversaw both the Sturm donation and the East Wing Project, has announced he will retire at the end of 2026 after more than 21 years leading the institution. Sparks joined the museum in 2004 and helped expand its annual audience beyond 2 million visitors, according to the museum's own announcement.
Originally incorporated in 1900, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science now operates out of a 716,000-square-foot complex in City Park, holding more than 4.3 million objects on a $52 million annual budget, according to Denver Westword. The facility has expanded more than a dozen times since it first opened at its current site in 1908, underscoring just how much the Sturm Family Wing represents the museum's latest chapter in a long history of growth.
