Plans for the Wyandot Park--Wet and Dry

[The Interpreter]

ZOO’S PLANS FOR VENUE

Out with the old, in with THE MEGAZOO

Expanded venue will be unique in animal kingdom

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Matt Tullis

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

No longer will swimsuit-clad visitors have to scurry on hot asphalt past game booths to get from Christopher’s Island to the Wave Pool.

Nor will those seeking nothing more than a rollercoaster ride wind up with a wet bottom because the occupant before them had just cruised the Lazy River.

When the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium reopens what used to be Wyandot Lake in the spring of 2008, the park will be distinctly different �" with a dry side and a wet side, said the zoo’s chief operating officer, Manny Gonzalez.

Visitors also will pay no more than they do now to visit the zoo or the water park (the wet side). Zoo admission will be $10 while admission to the water park, which will include zoo entry, likely will cost $29.99. There will be no separate admission for the theme park (the dry side), but visitors will have to pay for rides there.

A season pass will be offered that includes both the zoo and water park, although the price has not been set, Gonzalez said.

According to the master plan, the amusement park’s dry rides will be clustered near the entrance and the water park’s wet rides will be grouped at the back. The wet park will have a Galapagos Island and shipwreck theme; the dry park will take on the look of the Amazon.

When the two parks open in 2008, a new main gate will serve both them and the zoo. Within the next 10 years after that, the zoo complex will have grown more than five times its current size through expansion, new animal exhibits, the golf course and even a proposed hotel with an indoor water park.

"I don’t think the zoo will ever go through another opportunity like this," Gonzalez said.

Despite its growth, the nonprofit zoo will continue to need tax money to maintain low admission prices. The current 10-year, 0.75-mill levy went into effect this year and will bring in about $18.6 million a year, $8 million of which goes toward the zoo’s annual $30 million in operating expenses.

About $10 million a year is set aside for capital projects such as the $18 million Polar Frontier, which also will open in 2008 and feature the return of polar bears.

Tax money is not being used on the overhaul of the former Wyandot Lake. Gonzalez said the zoo formed a for-profit entity and is financing the project through private loans.

"We are not utilizing any tax dollars that were intended for the zoo," he said. "All of those tax-levy dollars have been assigned to exhibit work and zoological work."

In the coming years, Gonzalez sees the zoo and its attractions competing for families who typically go to Cedar Point or Kings Island �" especially those with younger children who might not enjoy bigger, scarier rides and families who don’t want to drive a couple of hours.

"We will be the first to own a golf course, a water park, a family theme park and an incredible zoological association," Gonzalez said.

Thor Degelmann, of LEDO International, a California-based amusement-park consulting firm, said Columbus likely will have the first complex involving a zoo, water and theme parks and a golf course. But it won’t be the last.

"There are other facilities around the country planning to do much the same thing," Degelmann said. "It’s the competition for the leisure dollar, and more important, for the limited leisure time."

The development plans call for the relocation of Powell Road, which will intersect Riverside Drive at Glick Road. Work on the four-lane relocation should be finished in late 2007. The zoo will have two entrances on the relocated Powell Road, which will replace the Riverside Drive entrance.

With Powell Road moved, more than 100 acres of land to the north of the zoo will open up for development, including a 70-acre African Savannah that one day will be home to giraffes.

The zoo alone is now 82 acres; after the expansion it will be about 250 acres, Gonzalez said. Add the parks and golf course, and the entire complex will comprise more than 580 acres.

It’s the water park and theme park that will set the facility apart, though.

The zoo will spend $20 million to overhaul the amusement park, which it purchased from Six Flags for $2 million in June.

Combined, the water and theme parks will be 30 acres, compared with 17 acres for the old Wyandot Lake. The 13 rides in the theme park, all geared toward families, will include a spinning coaster, a giant wheel and several others, Gonzalez said.

The water park will include a new wave pool and a new waterslide complex. The Shark Attack will be refurbished and relocated, and a new signature slide, either the Tornado or the Cannon Bowl, will be added.

No date has been set for construction of the hotel and indoor water park, Gonzalez said.

The expansion will make the zoo a major destination for families from throughout the state, said Patty Geiger, an Experience Columbus spokeswoman.

"With the expansion they have under way, they’re going beyond the borders of central Ohio," Geiger said. "Once it reaches that, it’s much easier to market at a regional and national level."

mtullis@dispatch.com

http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php...1130-A1-00.html

[thejoker8388]

I myself am a Columbus resident and this sounds amazing. A spinning coaster? That's one type of coaster I've always felt would fit really well into the PKI lineup. I wonder who the maker will be. In my wildest dreams it'd be a Maurer Söhne, but whatever it is it should be amazing. I just went to the zoo last week for the Christmas lights and it's already under going a major transformation. They have a new huge paved parking lot, instead of the old gravel lot and the new Asia exhibit is world class and only half of it's open.

The Columbus Zoo is already known as one of the nicer zoos in the nation but after all these additions are done it should become a premier, nationaly recognized zoo. I can't wait to see what the zoo looks like after all these additions.