ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Monroe County has finally started a major expansion at the Seneca Park Zoo, breaking ground on a project that will add a tropics building with indoor and outdoor habitats, a 60,000-gallon aquatic habitat, a shark petting area, new event spaces and a gift shop. The expansion will allow the Zoo to bring back orangutans and add dozens of new species, including a Komodo dragon, a giant octopus, sharks and jellyfish.
The total cost for the expansion is now $135 million, with $67.6 million coming from Monroe County taxpayers and $44.4 million from New York state taxpayers. The Seneca Park Zoo Society is responsible for raising the remaining $23 million.
So far, the society has raised a little less than $8 million. When asked what would happen if they can’t come up with the rest of the money, Monroe County Executive Adam Bello told News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke, “Monroe County is authorized to bond for the full amount of the project so, it’ll get covered if the fundraising falls short but I’m pretty confident in the ability of the Seneca Park Zoo Society to do this.”
The budget is higher than originally planned due to construction, plumbing, mechanical and electrical bids coming in between 8 and 46 percent higher than expected.
“The increases that we saw that were related to inflation, diesel, tariffs, were actually less than what we’re seeing on a lot of other projects coming out,” Bello says. The County Executive added he is confident that the project can now be built within the $135m budget, “we are locked in with contracts.”
The county is hoping the new tropics building and entrance will be open to the public by the end of 2029.
As far as the current animals at the zoo and how they will handle the construction, “we’re fortunate because the staff knows these animals very well, so we’ll monitor them closely, we work well with our construction folks so if we need to have a pause of something we will but honestly, we have a little bit of a space between where the construction is happening and where the animals are that we think everything is going to be just fine,” says Seneca Park Zoo Director Bob Lee.
Higher construction bids pushed up the Seneca Park Zoo budget, but Monroe County Executive says the project is now locked in WHEC.com.
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