Tampa zoo setting up $125M growth with hyperlink to Hillsborough River

Coming sometime to ZooTampa at Lowry Park: lions, jaguars, sea lions and a entire good deal more manatees. Moreover a immediate link to the Hillsborough River, via which attendees may perhaps a single day be ready to arrive at the zoo by river taxi.

These are amid the highlights of a new 20-year, $125 million growth job that zoo leaders are developing with Tampa officials, and that the zoo ideas to existing to city leaders quickly.

The venture would consist of expanded African and Asian habitats and a new South American habitat on the grounds of the park’s servicing facilities, nestled within Lowry Park across North Boulevard.

“Our strategies are heading to revitalize that region, but we designed a aware work not to intrude on the green room of the park itself,” ZooTampa CEO and president Joe Couceiro explained. “We’re going to be improving the general public obtain to the land that is now taken up by the upkeep facility. This is nevertheless a do the job in progress with the metropolis, as considerably as the particulars surrounding that relocation. But which is exactly where the growth is heading to be.”

The prolonged-expression challenge will start out with two developments now underway: An expanded interactive stingray exhibit slated to open up following yr, and an expanded manatee rehabilitation and care center anticipated to open up by 2026.

Soon after that, the zoo will open up an exhibit focused to the wildlife of South The us, which include jaguars, sea lions and giant river otters.

“Due to our temperate local weather, we’re one of the couple of zoos in the nation that can really dwelling these species that are indigenous to South The us with no putting them indoors,” Couceiro reported.

Company will be ready to enter ZooTampa through the South The united states facet via a new entrance together Lowry Park, which would have retailers, eateries and an entertainment room obtainable to the general public. A skybridge across North Boulevard would hook up the japanese Lowry Park side to the relaxation of ZooTampa.

Eventually, the zoo will build out its African location by incorporating lions, a gorilla habitat and producing a new multispecies room for elephants, giraffes and white rhinos as perfectly as its Asian habitats for orangutans and tigers. Just one eventual expertise that Couceiro highlighted: the possibility to camp out right away in “cabana-like facilities” near the lion enclosure, “a special and distinctive featuring that other zoos, as significantly as I’m conscious, do not present.”

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The zoo, like Lowry Park, sits on metropolis-owned land, and would need to have town partnership for expansion. Couceiro stated zoo leaders have been talking about the venture with advancement officials for a yr and a 50 percent. Zoo officials experienced prepared to present a proposal for the enlargement at Thursday’s Town Council conference, but Couceiro said they would search for specific meetings with users in its place.

“ZooTampa is a neighborhood treasure, and we appear forward to examining the components of the proposed enlargement that demand Town of Tampa approval,” Tampa administrator for enhancement and economic possibility Nicole Travis stated in a statement.

The zoo strategies to find both equally community and private financing for the project, Couceiro reported. The zoo is mostly self-funded, he reported, and will also use revenue from its individual coffers.

“We have a lengthy way to go, but we feel that above the future 20 yrs, $125 million is doable,” he stated. “It’s a thing that I imagine we can are living with, as much as return on investment decision.”

The announcement comes just four months immediately after an additional Tampa wildlife establishment, the Florida Aquarium, declared a key growth of its individual, a $40 million task that will include things like new habitats for sea lions, puffins and African penguins.

“We never actually compete we complement just about every other,” Couceiro mentioned. “We presently have some points that they have. We have penguins, they have penguins. We have stingrays, they have stingrays. I really don’t consider the actuality that we could have some replicate species impacts us in any way.”

The aquarium enlargement is anticipated to operate into 2025. With a 20-calendar year timeline, ZooTampa’s growth will run until 2042, when many youthful friends currently may well be returning with young ones of their have.

“Yes, it is a long horizon, but we have measures together the way that we have prepared out to make certain that we’re not resting on our laurels or looking too much into the potential,” Couceiro mentioned. “We want to make absolutely sure we provide an practical experience that at the existing offers the kind of price that Tampa residents and website visitors alike are wanting for and can choose gain of.”