THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 31, 1994 TAG: 9408310472
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
After hearing a consultant call it ``the city's next big project,'' the City Council agreed Tuesday to spend $4.9 million to revamp the zoo with natural wildlife areas, a restaurant and an auditorium.
The council pledged the money to the Virginia Zoological Society, the nonprofit group leading the effort. The society in turn pledged to raise the same amount from private donors. The group will also seek state funds. The council did not formally appropriate money but made an oral commitment in the informal session.
The Zoological Society is pitching the project as one that would complement others like Nauticus and Harbor Park. Backers say that revamping the zoo could more than double its annual attendance to 800,000, which is close to a target figure for Nauticus.
The plans unveiled to the council show a rebuilt zoo where animals would live in areas that simulate their natural habitats. Zebras, giraffes and rhinos would graze together on grasslands. Visitors would often be separated from animals only by barriers of thin, almost invisible wire.
Animals native to the continents of Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and South America would roam in five different areas. A center area called ``the Dismal Swamp'' would harbor black bear and cougar in a marshy setting.
``One's backyard ecology can be just as interesting as Africa's or Asia's,'' said Ace Torre, a consultant with Design Consortium of New Orleans who created the master plan.
The Norfolk effort is patterned after similar projects in other cities, including New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa, Fla., and Seattle. The plans would expand the zoo from its current 41 acres to 53 acres. Torre has designed several zoos around the country, including New Orleans' Audubon Zoo.
The master plan would take 10 to 15 years to complete, depending on fund-raising success, the group estimates. The first phase would take three years, cost $4.4 million and include the ``African savannah'' section with more than a dozen animals. The city's $4.9 million would be spent over the next five years.
About 350,000 people visit the Norfolk zoo annually, plan backers say, but the variety of animals is limited.
``Many of our visitors roam around the zoo looking in vain for the lions, the zebras, the bears and the giraffe,'' Margaret R. Falkiner, president of the Zoological Society, told the council. ``They often come back to the entrance and ask where these animals are, as if we were hiding them.''
Stylistically, parts of the zoo would be redesigned to resemble a Victorian-era park, much as Lafayette Park looked at the turn of the century. The zoo's entrance off Granby Street would be made more striking.
Project backers also said the new zoo should help property values in surrounding neighborhoods such as Park Place. by CNB