Could new plans announced for former Sleep Train Arena land help Elk Grove’s zoo chances?
Elk Grove says it has the land and the demographics to provide a new home for the Sacramento Zoo.
Now development plans announced last week for a site once seen as a potential new home for the Land Park landmark could further tip the scales toward Elk Grove.
The proposed 183-acre Innovation Park development, a mix of higher density apartments, townhomes and single-family homes would join California Northstate University’s planned 14-story, 730,000 square-foot teaching hospital, trauma center and medical school on the site of the former Sleep Train Arena.
Sacramento parks and community enrichment commissioners discussed the project Thursday. The Sacramento City Council is expected to discuss the project in February.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg had delayed a December 2020 vote to endorse a study recommending the zoo move to North Natomas Regional Park. The council’s blessing of the study would have allowed the zoo to begin fundraising and allow consideration of additional Sacramento sites.
Sleep Train was among the sites said to be under consideration by Sacramento leaders.
But Sacramento council members haven’t yet reconsidered other locations as leaders there tackle what Steinberg in September called the city’s “urgent crises:” affordable housing and prioritizing development in downtown Sacramento’s railyards and along the city’s waterfront.
The Sacramento mayor has said that he wanted a “full council and community discussion” on the resources that would be required to expand the zoo in Sacramento, The Sacramento Bee reported, adding that “the zoo question ought to be considered in this broader context.”
Fresno, Houston zoos offer models
Meantime, Elk Grove and zoological society officials are at work. Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and city officials traveled to Fresno in late October and to Houston last week to tour zoos, meet zoo officials and talk with experts in those cities.
Houston Zoo, with its 55-acre park setting, is similar size and scale to the one proposed in Elk Grove.
The Fresno Chaffee Zoo shares the same Central Valley climate as Elk Grove and, at roughly the same age as the 94-year-old Sacramento Zoo, acquired additional land to expand its footprint. The Fresno zoo also features an African savanna exhibit that better replicates animals’ natural habitats, Singh-Allen said.
“It was eye-opening, being able to see what these habitats could look like. You don’t see new zoos coming up very often, so each zoo was a learning opportunity,” Singh-Allen said Monday. “Seeing the care for the animals, the behind-the-scenes view, the conservation story — the role zoos play in preserving species.”
Singh-Allen said following the trips, city officials will now be able to “make more well-informed decisions when the time comes.”
In September, Elk Grove and the Sacramento Zoological Society announced they had entered into exclusive talks to consider moving the zoo from its nearly century-old Land Park home to a proposed 60-acre site in south Elk Grove more than three times the size of the zoo’s present 14.7 acres. Zoo officials agree not to negotiate with other cities during the length of the six-month pact.
The parcel at Kammerer Road and Lotz Parkway sits in the city’s 1,200-acre south-area master plan set aside nearly 20 years ago for Elk Grove’s last large-scale urban development. The land plan is the reason, Elk Grove Economic Development Director Darrell Doan said, “why we can put the zoo where we can put it.”
Zoning allows for a zoological park with city approvals and Elk Grove secured an option to buy the land from developer Kamilos Companies at a cost of $6.6 million to $6.9 million, if zoo officials agree to a move, say city officials.
The zoo had been searching for a new Sacramento location for nearly four years with no luck. Faced with aging habitats, its continued accreditation is in jeopardy.
“It is critical that the zoo find a new home as soon as possible,” zoo officials said in the September news release announcing their agreement with Elk Grove. The Sacramento Zoo remains open at its longtime Land Park location and “will be for the foreseeable future,” said Elizabeth Stallard, president of the zoo’s board of trustees, in September.
Elk Grove moves quickly
In October interviews, Singh-Allen and Doan made the case for Elk Grove as a new home for the Sacramento Zoo and discussed the relationship the city has forged with zoo officials, one that started with a phone call from zoological society officials in late June and quickly developed.
“The zoo was looking at all of their options and needed to look at cities outside of Sacramento. They expressed an interest in Elk Grove,” Doan said. “We thought it was a good fit. We have the fifth-largest school district in the state, a consumer set of either members of or visitors to the zoo. We were eager to have the conversation,” Doan said.
“Elk Grove prides itself on the ability to work quickly. Elk Grove showed the ability and the willingness to move quickly,” Doan said. “A day later, we were having substantive discussions and it was an easy decision to come to ..... The biggest initial piece was where to put it? We’re not 100% built out. (The land is) former or current ag land that is easy to pick up.”
City’s ‘legacy moment’
Singh-Allen, Elk Grove’s first-term mayor, is presiding over a flurry of commercial and civic projects poised to reshape the city. Together with the zoo’s potential move south, Singh sees it as a “legacy moment” for Elk Grove that could shift the city from Sacramento suburb to regional destination.
The zoo would also be a significant economic driver. Elk Grove projects a relocated Sacramento Zoo would employ about 250 people and draw about 1 million visitors a year.
Elk Grove is a “zoo-friendly community,” Doan said. “We’re family-friendly, an ethnically diverse community. We have great consumer demographics and a population that could potentially sustain the zoo. The zoo will help us check that regional destination box,” Doan continued. “The zoo is an opportunity to capture that.”
Doan also looks to the Capital SouthEast Connector project linking US 50 to Interstate 5 as another important piece in the effort to bring the zoo to Elk Grove.
“The connection is critical. We’re the southern half of the beltway — this is a critical piece,” Doan said. “The message to existing zoo patrons is that it’s easy to get to Elk Grove. There’s parking, accessibility, the affordability of Elk Grove with 60 acres. We can bring a blank slate and build a zoo for the next 100 years. It’s still a regional zoo.”
Cal Northstate had planned to erect the hospital on its west Elk Grove campus near the city’s Stonelake neighborhood, but the controversial plan took heat from Stonelake residents who said the towering project would encroach on the neighborhood; and from environmental and animal advocates, including the Audubon Society, for its proposed proximity to the Pacific Flyway and the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, one of the few urban refuges in the nation.
Elk Grove city planners ultimately rejected the Cal Northstate hospital plan and the medical school turned its eyes to Natomas.
This story was originally published November 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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