Billionaire David Koch gives $35 million to Natural History Museum

The executive vice president of Koch Industries has donated $35 million to the National Museum of National History , the Smithsonian Institution announced Thursday. The gift will go to the 30-year-old dinosaur hall, which museum officials say has long been in need of renovations. Koch, a member of the museum’s advisory board, previously gave $15 million to the museum’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins. Thursday’s gift marks the largest single donation to the Natural History Museum perhaps because fossils have long piqued Koch’s interests. Koch, whose estimated worth is $25 billion, has donated millions to artistic and historic organizations: He gave $20 million to New York’s American Museum of Natural History dinosaur exhibit and $100 million for the revamp of the State Theater of New York at Lincoln Center. The Natural History museum’s 25,000-square-foot dinosaur hall holds 46 million fossils some date back to the Smithsonian’s debut a century ago. The renovation, which has an estimated price tag of $45 million, is slated for spring 2014 and completion in 2019.