Where did you find this information???
Milwaukee County Zoo Master Plan and Future Renovations
- Thread starter pachyderm pro
- Start date
From the county’s website
Does anyone know where previous zoo master plans can be found. Been curious about the difference between them as well as what’s been the focus with each master plan.
I have all of these, thanks for sharing though I appreciate it. I’m looking for the past ones prior to the 2013 master plan. Did milwaukee have one?
I figured you did, but I thought I would share anyway, haha
That is a great question. I have no idea if they have any previous ones. I'm anxiously waiting for the new ones to come out! I am really curious to see what the new director has in store for us.
Aside from the Capital Campaign projects from the 1990s/early 2000s, which consisted mostly of individual building/exhibit renovations (Big Cats, Macaque Island, A&R, Animal Hospital etc) I don't think there has been a "Master Plan" since the 1980s with "Underwater World" Although I'm not sure that was a master plan either, more a string of expansions and renovations with a similar goal: underwater viewing. The 2013 Master Plan may have been the first one for Milwaukee in quite a long time.
I would love to hear about "Underwater World"!
My first visit to Milwaukee was 2001 and I have zero memory of the early Monkey Island but I do distinctly recall the original Big Cat House. Would love to see some photos if anyone has some to match my memories. It was my first time seeing cougar I know. I might recall the original giraffe house too but much less sure about that without photos.
I also have some photos of the sea lions when they lived by the polar bears, the old wolf exhibit, when the red pandas lived by the camels, the koala and myself by the old moose exhibit... sadly nothing of the cats, though I do sometimes wonder if any of those old photos are worth uploading here.
Looking into it a little further, "Underwater World" was the underwater viewing for polar bears, seals, and the new Humboldt penguin exhibit and Dolphin Show Arena (now sea lion show). The New New Zoo was a master plan from the late 1980s/early 90s that included those projects. I recall seeing some renderings of a grand entrance and walrus exhibit (obviously, that didn't pan out) in an old issue of Alive magazine, but I cannot find it at the moment. But here's a link to the past issues of Alive magazine for anyone interested in that:
Alive Magazine Archive - Zoological Society of Milwaukee
There's lots of tidbits of old information in these, really cool to go back through the archives and read!
Alive Magazine Archive - Zoological Society of Milwaukee
There's lots of tidbits of old information in these, really cool to go back through the archives and read!
Where did you find it, when clicking on the link it brought me to modern day.
There should be a page list towards the bottom of the screen, similar to the ones at the bottom of thread pages on zoochat. There are 8 pages in the archive
It’s once again that time of year where the county starts to look at capital improvements for the next year. The zoo has seemed to be taking a new twist with the zoo director on future plans as they bring to emerge.
2025
2025
- Basic maintenance around the zoo
- (Construction) Ocean Connections Pool
- (Planning) Primate area refresh
- (Construction) Front Entrance reconstruction
- (Construction) Primate area refresh
- (Construction) Demo of small mammals building
- New Carousel
- (Planning) Tropical Building
- (Planning) Wild North-South Passage
- (Construction) Tropical Building
Is there any info on what some of this might include
Based on what I’ve seen the tropical building which wasn’t in the old master plan is now taking center stage, as well as this wild north-south passage project. Details on both have been very sparse, and trust me I’ve been searching for it. The only details that I’ve seen thus far is estimated budgets. $6 million for the design of north-south passage and then $48 million for the design and building of the tropical building.
Also there’s the primate refresh which is intriguing because I’m not sure the focus of that project, but currently has a budget around $6.5 million for design and build.
The budgets do seem bigger so maybe there’s going to be much more theming and experiences then with the most recent updates to the zoo.
The splash pad that was supposedly going to be built in the farm area, no longer seems to be high priority. Also it looks like the Alaskan Gold Coast has been removed or possibly the project has morphed into the north-south passage.
Since we don’t have an updated master plan with the new outlook and strategic planning for the zoo, these are all guesses at this point.
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As disappointing as it'll be to lose the species, I'm glad that the Small Mammals Building will go as I've always felt it was one of, if not "the," least successful part of Milwaukee. Hopefully the animals will be able to come back in the future - perhaps that "Primate Refresh" or "Tropical Building" mentioned? I wonder what the "Ocean Connections" construction is all about too?
Director Morris suggested they would be building a new small mammal house. It's possible the Tropics project is a variation on this as the existing small mammals are mostly tropical species.
ConcernedThirdParty
Well-Known Member
I spoke to a keeper in the ectotherm building today about a variety of topics (See the general news post). They said that while they would actually prefer a brand-new shared space (I think this would have been that tropics building). Their current expectation however, is that a new dedicated aquatics facility will be built and that the current building will be renovated to refocus on reptiles. It sounded like nothing about any of the new buildings was finalized yet though. My guess is that the original hope was to have something like The Osher Rainforest at the California Academy of Science or the Lied Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo but budget realities began to set in.
Looking for old pictures of the original big cat building for nostalgia's sake was actually what led me to finding this website in the first place.
I think this is for the best. These indoor rainforest buildings seem incredibly expensive to build and only a few of them are really successful or well-received. It's very high-risk, high-reward, and as soon as you start cutting back, you start to undermine the final product. Milwaukee is such a cash-strapped institution I think it would be an unwise use of resources for them and not provide the bang for buck they would want.
I could see the former aquatic spaces in the Aquatic and Reptile Center going to good use with retooling (the current Amazon tank could hold an impressive, larger reptile; not sure about the Lake Wisconsin space) and a new aquatics building would have promise for introducing small sharks, rays, sea turtles, and other aquatic species that can't be held in the ARC's fewer spaces.
Let me know if you find anything! I visited the zoo once before the exhibit was replaced and while I know it doesn't meet modern care standards, 6-year-old me thought it was cool.