After months of relative silence on the issue, BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight unveiled a new proposal to relocate the Baton Rouge Zoo from Greenwood Park in the northern part of the parish to a more visible and highly traveled location elsewhere in East Baton Rouge.
Daily Report broke the story Wednesday. On Thursday, McKnight formally presented her new plan, which calls for spending roughly $110 million to redevelop Greenwood Park while simultaneously constructing a new Baton Rouge Zoo, to the BREC Board of Commissioners.
The plan is McKnight’s attempt to quiet her critics, who have long balked at any suggestion that the zoo would attract more people if it were in a different location. The critics also say the proposed move is another sign of disinvestment in majority-black north Baton Rouge.
McKnight disagrees.
“What kinds of things can happen here if we move the zoo,” she told Daily Report. “We could have two amazing facilities instead of one mediocre space.”
Under McKnight’s plan, the sprawling 660-acre Greenwood Park would be transformed into a state-of-the-art regional park equipped with soccer fields, horse trails, an amusement park, boat house, adventure playground and more.
BREC would spend roughly $40 million redeveloping the park, of which the zoo only occupies 147 acres.
Redevelopment would occur in phases—the first of which would cost an estimated $4.5 million and would include closing the J.S. Clark Golf Course, relocating its driving range and redeveloping the space into a new soccer facility.
Phase two would have an estimated $3 million price and would involve the development of new walking and horseback riding trails.
The third phase—the costliest at roughly $30 million—would redevelop the existing zoo space at Greenwood Park into a series of adventure playgrounds, water and amusement parks, rope and zip line courses and picnic grounds.
A location for a new zoo has yet to be decided, but McKnight and Baton Rouge Zoo Director Phil Frost say they have several potential sites in mind.
“We’ve looked at several sites that are very, very feasible at this point,” Frost said. “But we have to make a commitment, and once we get that commitment we can sit down and start talking.”
