The Perot Museum of Nature and Science plans to break ground on a $90 million expansion in January 2027, adding a fourth-level parking garage, more restrooms, additional event space, and a covered walkway to its main entrance. Construction is expected to wrap up by January 2029, according to state filings.
The project, which is privately funded, was detailed in a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, as first reported by NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. State regulatory records registered under project number TABS2026026458 show the expansion will encompass 246,000 square feet, with Dallas-based Beck Architecture LLC listed as the design firm of record, according to Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filings.
The addition is nearly as large as the museum's original footprint. The Perot Museum's Victory Park facility opened in December 2012 at a cost of $185 million, designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate Thom Mayne and Morphosis Architects, spanning 180,000 square feet, according to a PR Newswire announcement from that year. That original capital campaign was anchored by a $50 million lead gift in 2008 from the adult children of Ross and Margot Perot, for whom the museum is named, the same announcement noted.
A Century of Roots, Multiple Mergers
The museum's history in Dallas stretches back nearly 100 years, tracing through a series of predecessor institutions. The Dallas Museum of Natural History was established in 1936, The Science Place followed in 1946, and the Dallas Children's Museum was founded in 1995. Those three institutions merged in 2006 to form what became the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, per the NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth report.
The museum was last renovated in 2020, when it opened a dedicated off-site science and collections facility housing its paleontology laboratories and more than 150,000 research specimens, according to the Perot Museum. That expansion of its research footprint came eight years after the Victory Park building first opened its doors.
Growth Around Victory Park Is Reshaping Demand
The timing of the new expansion lines up with dramatic change in the surrounding neighborhood. The museum sits adjacent to a new $500 million regional corporate campus for Goldman Sachs in Victory Park, developed by Hunt Realty Investments on land where low-rise apartments were demolished to make way for office towers and an urban park, according to CoStar. That kind of commercial density helps explain why the museum is prioritizing additional parking, covered walkways, and event capacity in its new plans.
The museum's visitor numbers already run high. During fiscal year 2024, the Perot Museum hosted more than 836,000 on-site visitors, including over 113,000 students on 1,543 school field trips, according to nonprofit data tracked by Cause IQ. A regional STEM initiative that launched in spring 2026 added even more student traffic, sending over 48,000 Dallas ISD students — roughly 35% of district enrollment — on curriculum-aligned field trips to sites including the Perot Museum through the donor-funded Learning Voyages program.
Private Money Amid Public Tax Questions
The museum has emphasized that this expansion is privately funded, a detail that stands out against a separate financial controversy involving Dallas cultural institutions. An April 2026 audit by the Dallas Office of the City Auditor raised questions about whether $4.9 million in hotel occupancy tax reimbursements given to local cultural institutions, including the Perot Museum, properly documented compliance with state rules requiring proof of overnight visitor generation, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the Dallas arts cash mystery. The $90 million expansion is not tied to those public tax dollars.
Meanwhile, the museum's scientific staff has kept up a steady stream of research output. Researchers from SMU and the Perot Museum identified and named a new ancient marine reptile species, Tylosaurus rex, in May 2026, and its holotype fossil now sits on public display inside the museum. And in June 2026, historic 1936 natural history dioramas originally created for the Texas Centennial Exposition, pieces the Perot Museum had safeguarded after consolidating its downtown operations, reopened to the public at the Fair Park Visitor Center following a 14-year hiatus.
Those threads, from paleontology discoveries to historic preservation, underscore how the museum functions as both a research institution and a growing physical campus in the middle of one of Dallas' fastest-changing districts. With construction slated to begin in January 2027 and finish by January 2029, the Perot Museum is betting that Victory Park's growth will only continue.
