Dalí Museum plans $65M expansion

The Dalí Museum in downtown St. Petersburg announced plans on Wednesday for a $65 million expansion that will more than double its size by 2028. 

The museum itself is already a surrealist sanctuary showcasing more than 2,400 of the late artist Salvador Dalí’s works from every period and medium of the artist’s life. But plans unveiled by the museum Wednesday show a “transformative expansion.” Plans call for the addition of 35,000 square feet to the south side of the existing, 20,000 square foot building in an area that is now a parking lot.

The museum’s current home is an iconic, concrete building consumed by a giant geodesic glass bubble known as the “Enigma” and opened to the public in 2011. In keeping with that design and the spirit of Dalí’s works, the planned expansion promises to “reimagine in concrete, steel and digital delivery what a museum can be,” museum officials say in a release.

“It’s not about being bigger, it’s about being bolder,” Hank Hine, executive director of The Dalí Museum, says in the release. “For more than four decades, The Dalí has led through innovation, empowering visitors to see differently and think expansively. This next chapter allows us to move beyond existing limitations and create space, intellectually and physically, for deeper learning, more ambitious experiences and broader access.”

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The Beck Group constructed the museum’s existing building and will design and build the expansion in consultation with its original architect, Yann Weymouth of PBK, the release says. The new addition will feature flexible gallery environments for experiential exhibitions that blend art and technology, the museum says. Designs also include space for a learning center for students of all ages as well as “community-focused spaces” designed to host social, corporate and cultural events. 

“The exterior design, what we call Reveal, plays with expectation,” Trevor Lamphier, Design Principal at The Beck Group, says in the release. “It extends and reinterprets the existing building, using familiar materials in new ways to create moments of discovery. Like Dalí’s work, the architecture invites a double take, rewarding curiosity and encouraging visitors to slow down and look again.”

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The new expansion will tie together The Dalí’s existing galleries, theater, dome and Avant-garden,” the release says. The museum will stay open throughout construction, which is expected to begin as soon as this fall. The new addition was first approved St. Pete voters in 2022 and then given final approval by the city of St. Petersburg in an amendment to its 99-year lease that was granted in December 2024.

Funding for the estimated $65 million expansion includes early support from Visit St. Pete-Clearwater’s “From Visitors with Love” initiative — a direct reinvestment of tourist development tax dollars. Since opening in 1982, the Dalí Museum has welcomed more than 10 million visitors, according to the release, and generated more than $1 billion in economic impact for the region.

A 3D model of the proposed expansion will be on view at the museum beginning May 2 — part of a special exhibition dubbed “The Architecture of The Dalí” that explores the museum’s architectural evolution and future vision, the release says.