The vision of a parking garage at Woodland Park Zoo became more concrete last week when zoo officials, engineers and architects held what will likely be one of the final public comments on the project during an open house.
Despite light attendance, several visitors raised the same concerns that have made building the $18 million, four-floor garage at the zoo controversial. The most common criticism was that the zoo’s mission of conservation is at odds with a project designed to make visiting more convenient by car.
“(The garage) is about driving your car to the zoo. That’s a terrible message for the zoological society to send,” said Irene Wall, president of the Phinney Ridge Community Council and nearby neighbor.
The Woodland Park Zoological Society, which operates the zoo, and the City of Seattle, which provides oversight, both as landlord and principle financier of the garage, contend that the additional parking is needed since more than 90 percent of visitors drive. Currently, there are fewer than 650 parking spots on the zoo grounds, and the garage will more add about 700 more. Zoo officials say that parking demand exceeds supply about 100 days a year.
Jim Bennett, the zoo’s communications director, said convenience was a big part of the garage’s appeal, especially since the zoo’s prime demographic includes parents with small children.
“You don’t think it’s far (from street parking) but it is for people with strollers. That’s our primary audience,” he said.
Mary Rivard, a Fremont resident, was sympathetic to the needs of encumbered parents, but worried about the girth of the box-shaped structure, which has walls about 240 feet long.
“I could see a genuine need but the idea of a 700-car garage sitting there half empty all the time is a bad idea,” she said. “I wish they would be thinking more creatively with Metro (King County Transit).”
In fact, the 2001 management agreement that handed off operational control of the zoo from the city, endorsed construction of the parking garage but instructed the zoological society to “continue to develop an alternative transportation plan in conjunction with King County Metro
