I would be interested to hear more about this. Besides a few minor tweaks (I'm not sure why Feathers and Scales is sticking around and the amount of service paths is incredibly unnecessary) If all of this became reality Brookfield would likely be one of the top five zoos in America imo.
When I visited Brookfield in 2018, Feathers and Scales was one of my favourite exhibits at the zoo. The large rainforest aviary was one of the best exhibits at the zoo, and free-raging Currasow was an interesting touch. I would be sorely disappointed if this exhibit was no longer at the zoo.
The Tropical Aviary is actually one of my favorite exhibits in the zoo. However, besides that there isn't a whole lot else the building has to offer. Reptile exhibits are insignificant and uninteresting and the rest of the bird exhibits are cool, but can easily be displayed elsewhere in the zoo. If it were up to me I would expand this building like the master plan intended and make it a South American exhibit. It would fit nicely with the nearby Living Coast (based on a Peruvian coastline), Andean condor flight cage and the orginally planned flamingo exhibit. Rebuild the rainforest aviary, maybe make it outdoors or even a walkthrough but keep the same species and overall design. Move in some South American species that wouldn't fit into Tropic World like ocelots, coatis, tamanduas, Orinoco crocodiles, macaws and a variety of reptiles/amphibians and that would make a very nice building.
That's fair, the rainforest aviary is the main reason why I like this house so much. I thought the desert aviary was quite nice as well, although I agree that the rest of the house is fairly insignificant. This is a good idea, I think the addition of an inside/outside Ocelot enclosure, tamanduas, some smaller herps (not sure about Crocodiles, they might be too large) and perhaps even a nocturnal exhibit as well. I wouldn't mess with the rainforest aviary, it makes for a perfect centerpiece to the house.
Master Plans work like that. They are never completed but they also take a long time to be abandoned. It is the zoo's Master Plan until there is a new one
Very true, however the Illinois Farm exhibit that was originally planned was scrapped and replaced by the Wild Encounters Children's Zoo, a completely different exhibit than what was originally intended. Same goes for the planned Japanese macaque exhibit, which was instead turned into a nature plaza. I get things will change as time goes on, but this shows that its hard to know for sure how strictly the zoo is following this plan, and considering it's been a decade since anything listed here was built its easy to dismiss it as a case of could've, would've, should've.
The Detroit Zoo was going to turn the old Penguinarium into a bat conservation center but I haven't seen any mention of that for quite a while and the building is now being used to house the penguins while the new penguin house is repaired due to contractor's mistakes. Some years ago I saw a picture of a rather complete master plan in a book celebrating the zoo's history but no one seems to know anything about it, it was years ago, and as far as I can tell none of it was ever built. I can't find a picture.
For years signs were up in the Central Florida Zoo marking the future homes of Sumatran tigers and orangutans. Some money was raised for the tiger habitat but the fundraising effort was aborted by this poorly funded zoo.
Do tell. I've never heard of this proposed aquarium. Another grand plan that seems to have been cancelled is Africa Trail at the Minnesota Zoo.
Back in the early 90's, Disney planned to build a large ocean-themed theme park, with the centrepiece being a massive aquarium named Oceana. Read about it here. There was also an area called Venture Reefs, home to more aquariums as well as a shark tank where you'd be able to be lowered into it via a cage.
That would have been fun. Disney had lots of ambitious plans in the 90s that didn't come to fruition.
I`ve recently bought a book dealing with zoo architecture with focus on the change of the architectual style over the years. Anyways in this book were a lot of exclusive plans and there were a lot of plans from the Tierpark Berlin, which was built during the GDR, containing massive plans of unbuilt buildings for example Hippos or Giraffes. But i guess these plans were overthrown due to the rising economic problems the GDR had before the disintegration of the Sovjet Union.
Another unfinished enclosure that comes to my mind right now is the exhibit for striped hyenas in Tierpark Hagenbeck. In 2013 was a complex for onager and striped hyenas planned and built, the onager live in their enclosure as planned until today but there were never striped hyenas introduced to the park. All the infos i`ve found regarding that topic were not official, but as far as i know the reason that the hyenas never got to the park were, that their exhibit wasn`t escape proof. But as i said all this seems kinda weird to me since the Tierpark never mentioned the reason really and overall they didn`t seem to promote this project really in the first place.
I'm surprised they haven't made plans for new parks in recent years, (you know, before COVID) given complaints about overcrowding at their current parks. I bet one of the hard parts is coming up with a park plan that can survive long term, not just when the parks are doing very well. And maybe their struggles during the 90s made them more cautious. They did build a DisneySea in Tokyo, but I don't think it has the educational emphasis that California DisneySea was planned to. I'm pretty iffy on the whole "educational theme park" model but there were some cool ideas there. As for my own example of cancelled exhibits... Years ago the head of the San Antonio Zoo mentioned plans to have an African elephant exhibit, but that never went through. Given the lack of official announcement or much discussion at all I figure those plans were just in the talking stage and died there.
Not just that but everything in that master plan never came to fruition because the zoo got a new director in 2016, only the carousel, nature play area, and the renovation to discovery bay. It’s sad to see so many potential great exhibits, like the Africa trail (as mentioned), Asian highlands, and the tropics trail expansion. It’s sad to see any planed exhibit not become a reality, but plans change and who knows? They might bring the plan back in the future
