On June 16, 2016, the Chicago Tribune (
visit link) reported the following:
"Lincoln Park Zoo's Lion House to get makeover, shed tigers
Steve JohnsonContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
Lincoln Park Zoo's historic Lion House will be getting a complete makeover, as will the zoo's main, east entrance on Cannon Drive, the zoo is set to announce Thursday.
Modernizing the Kovler Lion House, which will no longer include a tiger habitat, will be the North Side free zoo's biggest capital project yet, at an estimated $30 million, and the new $9 million Welcome Center will change the way people come onto the premises, President and CEO Kevin Bell said in an interview in advance of Thursday's news.
The projects will join last year's Regenstein Macaque Forest and new penguin and polar bear habitats, expected to open this fall or winter, as key results of a $125 million fundraising campaign that is also being announced at a media event Thursday morning and to the Lincoln Park Zoo Society's annual meeting during an evening event. The fundraising effort, which has been in so-called quiet phase since 2012, has raised some $87 million, said officials.
"I feel great about it because this really does sort of finish, if you will, a lot of what we started back in the '70s," in terms of bringing aged zoo facilities into the modern era, Bell said.
The Lion House, in particular, has been a sore thumb, an oft-rehabbed 1912 building that has had a public perception problem.
"That's probably the one building at the zoo where, at least from a perception standpoint, there are bigger animals in smaller cages," Bell said. Especially on the building's north side, if you happen to catch the lions and tigers in their indoor spaces, rather than outside, "It looks like, oh my gosh, they haven't given them very much space at all," he said.
The institution doesn't have a timetable or even drawings for the new Lion House plan. But Bell said the concept under discussion would link outside and inside habitats on the building's south side and would bring visitors close up to a new, bigger outdoor lion habitat from the inside of the building.
"The public actually walks out into this habitat and you're just kind of surrounded by the animals," Bell said, describing the concept zoo staffers have in mind for the north side.
The rehabilitation, which will have to work within restrictions imposed by the building's historic landmark status, would also likely add an elevator to make the bathroom facilities in the basement wheelchair accessible.
"The current Kovler Lion House is a good landmark building for Lincoln Park Zoo," said Megan Ross, senior vice president. "But it doesn't showcase what we do so well, these naturalistic habitats that really highlight what the animals are doing and our … conservation research."
The species housed at Kovler will change as well, including the zoo's two Amur tigers likely moving on to other zoos, according to Bell."