If you move the Baton Rouge Zoo, what will replace it? BREC supt unveils her plan

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BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight is proposing to redevelop the sprawling, 660-acre Greenwood Park in north Baton Rouge—home to the Baton Rouge Zoo and two underutilized golf courses—into a state-of-the-art regional park with tournament-quality soccer fields, horse trails, a practice track, water park, amusement park, boat house and adventure playground, as well as more picnic areas and green spaces.

Key to the plan, which McKnight will present to the BREC Board of Commissioners Thursday, is relocating the zoo, which comprises 147 acres in the center of Greenwood, to a new, still undetermined location in a more visible, highly traveled area elsewhere in the parish.

The plan also calls for closing the J.S. Clark Golf Course, located in the southwest corner of the park, and relocating its driving range and First Tee program for beginning golfers to the nearby Dumas Memorial Golf Course, which is located in the northern quadrant of the park.

McKnight’s proposal for Greenwood comes more than a year after plans to relocate the zoo were vetted in a study that evaluated the cost of both renovating the 47-year-old zoo, which has suffered from declining attendance in recent years, at its existing location and building a new one. The price tag for both options came in at an estimated $110 million, though building a new zoo could be completed more quickly and would attract 50% more visitors, the study found.

McKnight has been an advocate of relocating the zoo. Opponents of the idea have said it would decimate an area that is already economically challenged. The concept plan for Greenwood is McKnight’s attempt to quiet her critics by showing “what kinds of things can happen here if we move the zoo,” she says. “We could have two amazing facilities instead of one mediocre space.”

McKnight has been quietly pitching her proposal to community leaders, stakeholders and members of the Metro Council, and says it has been enthusiastically received.

It won’t come cheaply, though. Redeveloping Greenwood Park would cost an estimated $40 million—in addition to the cost of building a new zoo.

McKnight says she would first explore public-private partnerships, corporate and private sponsorships, Legislative Capital Outlay money and grant funding before turning to local taxpayers for an additional millage, though taxpayer support would likely be inevitable.

The first phase would cost an estimated $4.5 million and would include relocating the Clark driving range and redeveloping the space into a new soccer facility, which would be named the J.S. Clark Sports Facility.

The second phase would cost an estimated $3 million and would involve the development of new walking and horseback riding trails.

The third and costliest phase of the project—with a price tag of roughly $30 million—calls for redevelopment of the existing zoo space into a series of adventure playgrounds, water and amusement parks, rope and zip line courses and picnic grounds. Baton Rouge Zoo Director Phil Frost estimates the development of the third phase could be as many as five years in the future. He says the zoo could continue to operate at its existing location while other improvements to the park are under way until just a few months before the animals would be moved to their new location.

As for where that location might be, Frost and McKnight say they have several potential sites in mind and a list of property owners with whom they could start negotiating once they get the green light from the commission to proceed.

Until now, all the talks they’ve had with landowners have been preliminary.

“We’ve looked at several sites that are very, very feasible at this point,” he says. “But we have to make a commitment, and once we get that commitment we can sit down and start talking.”

Frost says BREC would lease space for the zoo, not purchase the property.

McKnight’s release of the conceptual plan for Greenwood comes as the Metro Council prepares to hear a presentation later today from a group of LSU design students, who looked at ways to make the zoo more attractive in its existing location. Metro Council member Chauna Banks has been the most vocal opponent of moving the zoo and has led efforts to pressure BREC to keep the facility at its existing location.

Mayor Sharon Weston Broome recently got involved in the controversy, asking McKnight to review the LSU proposal. In a detailed response to the Mayor and members of the Metro Council, McKnight explained why the students’ plan, though well-intended, isn’t realistic on several fronts.

“This is serious business and that is why we have enlisted highly recognized and experienced zoo designers to assist in this amazing project,” McKnight says in her email. “If we are going to be wise stewards of tax dollars, we must rely on professionals studies. …”

If the commission approves moving forward with McKnight’s proposal, BREC will issue a request for proposals to do a master plan and a business plan for both the Greenwood Regional Park and the new zoo. She says both planning processes would go on simultaneously.

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