A look ahead: New entrance, welcome center coming to zoo

Beginning in early 2018, the Birmingham Zoo will getting a highly anticipated new welcome center and entrance.

The new entrance, which is going to be built in the same area where the original entrance was located, is budgeted to cost about $8 million of the $18.6 million raised through the Renew the Zoo initiative. This is the initiative’s second of three phases and is slated to take approximately one year to complete.

Zoo Senior Vice President Chris Pfefferkorn said the new two-story entrance building will be a “huge improvement in both visitor access and amenities.” 

Upon entering the building, visitors will have access to four ticket kiosks with information screens and eight lanes for guests, all of which will be set up in a concierge fashion.

“They [the guests] are not going to be bottlenecked,” Pfefferkorn said. 

The entrance will also feature a new gift shop and educational space on the first floor in addition to offices, a conference room and two open-air patios on the second floor. Pfefferkorn said the patios can be rented out for private events, and both those and the boardwalk that connects them overlook Henley Park and the Event Lawn.

“We’re pretty excited about these two outdoor terrace decks,” Pfefferkorn said. “The design looks better now with them.”

After purchasing tickets, guests will then proceed to a plaza area that backs up to the entrance. Pfefferkorn said the plaza, which will have two small ponds and a large walkway that splits off, can be closed off to allow guests to enter early and use the facilities or to recollect their group when coming and going. 

“This will help folks get a chance to spread out,” he said, mentioning that the former entrance become congested due to a lack of walkway space. New bathrooms are being added, too.

“When you have over 600,000 people coming to your zoo, bathrooms are always prime real estate,” he said. Guests will also have access to a separate area with first aid, a nursing room, and a sensory friendly room as well as a new educational space that opens onto the plaza.

Because the room will have a catering area adjacent to it, the space can be rented out when not in use for scheduled programming. 

“[Something] we’re really getting out of this is really more space to do more education programming here, which is really important to us,” Pfefferkorn said. Depending on how much space they have once the buildings complete, he said they may even be able to expand upon the existing programming.

And to incorporate their surroundings, Pfefferkorn said the zoo has worked with designers and architects to use materials that are found in Alabama. Steel, to represent Birmingham, and different types of wood and stone that occur naturally throughout the state will be prevalent in the building, but with a modern twist.

“We’ve designed those elements into it so that we will kind of recognize our Alabama heritage,” he said. “Using those materials really is reflecting here in Alabama.”

Because the entrance will be shifting slightly east towards Cahaba Lane, Pfefferkorn said the drop-off area for field trips, summer camps and large groups will move back toward the western end of the parking lot. This will free up spaces closer to the entrance and allow for safer loading and unloading procedures. 

“We really want the Birmingham Zoo to be an asset to the community, and this is really just going to help us do even more to that,” Pfefferkorn said, adding that they are grateful for the community’s support. “It’s going to improve the zoo in so many ways.”