“We have this opportunity to create this wild-type environment from the aquarium through Millenium Park to the zoo immediately adjacent to downtown Grand Rapids. How many communities across the country can say that?”
John Ball Zoo CEO Peter D’Arienzo says they’re doing due diligence on property along the Grand River to see if it meets their needs to build one of the largest aquariums in the U.S. requiring 20 acres and 2000 parking spaces plus an interpretive education center and community spaces.
It would be connected to Kent and Ottawa county trail systems in what he calls a “conservation corridor.”
“The zoo is on the north end of Millenium Park and the aquarium potentially is on the south side of Millenium Park and in between is this amazing more than 2000-acre Millenium Park and together it creates something really special.”
But there are challenges.
The site is near the former Fenske Landfill and the zoo is working with local leaders and the state’s environmental agency to determine what is needed to mitigate any contamination and who will pay for that.
D’Arienzo says the prior landfill is on only a tiny percentage of the property and the zoo is up for the challenge.
“Afterall, we’re a conservation-based organization. We’re literally in the business of restoring habitats, wild places and wildlife so we can take this site and do something really special with it.”
The CEO says it will take an undetermined amount of time to analyze the site but they are in the two-year design phase of the aquarium itself, and specialized construction is expected to take three years so the project could finish as soon as 2031.
