A look ahead: Zoo renovations

Throughout the past year, zoo guests encountered varying degrees of construction, particularly in the space that once held large fishponds. But the zoo isn’t done there. 

As part of its Renew the Zoo initiative, the Birmingham Zoo has the next two to three years planned out to make the space more inviting for families and larger groups, including a new entrance and an Asian Passage. The first on the list, however, is to complete construction on an event lawn. 

Construction for the lawn began with their initial renovations, which focused on filling in the previously existing fishponds and rehousing any inhabitants to different locations.

“The animal care staff spent a lot of time removing the fish and the turtles from the ponds before we completely drained it,” said Chris Pfefferkorn, senior vice president of the Birmingham Zoo. The zoo also installed a rainwater catch system, which recycles any rainfall to water the lawn in the future. 

The next step for the open space will be to install infrastructure needed to connect it to the rest of the zoo and make it a viable space for different types of events.

“We are putting in utilities into the lawn so that we have plug-in capabilities for events and lighting for the lawn,” Pfefferkorn said. Once those additions are all complete, soil and sod will be brought in to bring the lawn to life.

“We’re going to try to incorporate some small hills and different topography in there as well,” he said, which will also help create a space for children to run around during their visit.

Designed to be flexible to meet any event needs, the lawn will be able to hold about 3,000 standing visitors, which puts concerts in the realm of possibility.

“We’ll be putting in a stage pad, which will allow us to bring in portable stages,” Pfefferkorn said, adding that the stage could serve as a music, theater or movie venue. “The opportunities are endless.”

The stage will face away from the animals and toward the proposed new entrance, and to be sure that the music won’t affect the surrounding animals, a series of noise tests would be done.

“You study the animals; you measure their behavior and activity and response and things like that,” Pfefferkorn said. “Animal welfare is our top priority here, so we wouldn’t be doing things that are detrimental to the animals.”

Although the lawn isn’t near completion, marketing coordinator Kiki Nolen-Schmidt said they already have a wait for possible events.

“They have a running list of ‘As soon as we can get out on it,’” she said, mentioning that the zoo will want to have some of its own events there as well. 

The event lawn is expected to be finished by late 2017, with a new entrance following in 2018 and the Asian Passage completing the Renew the Zoo initiative in 2019. The zoo has raised just under $17 million, and it is committed to not exceeding the estimated $18 million, Pfefferkorn said. 

“We want the Birmingham Zoo to be an asset to the city of Birmingham as well as the citizens and the region,” he said. “[The renovations] just give us more opportunity to do that.”