Sacramento Zoo releases new plans for proposed Land Park expansion. What changed
The Sacramento Zoo’s planned expansion into William Land Park will no longer replace a historic vista area that contains a statue of Charles Swanston and a nearby garden, according to new diagrams released by the zoo.
The diagrams, which were released Tuesday morning, show the zoo still expanding into a former pony ride area on the east side of Land Park Drive and into spaces directly north of the zoo. But there is now a carve-out where the zoo had previously sought the Swanston statue and garden area, with the zoo instead planning to seek other nearby land.
Some speakers had raised concerns about the fate of the statue during a Sacramento City Council meeting in late April when the council agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the zoo about the expansion.
“We were hearing from the community that it mattered,” Sacramento Zoological Society Board President Elizabeth Stallard told The Bee after the diagrams were released. “We want to be good neighbors.”
What the zoo now seeks in Land Park
The zoo, which is currently 14.3 acres and among the smallest Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited zoos in the United States, was previously seeking 5.8 acres of Land Park for the expansion.
The proposal included 1.4 acres from the former pony ride area, which was dismantled by city workers in February, and 4.4 acres for the land that included the Swanston statue and the gardens. The new diagrams show that the zoo will instead ask for other land north of its entrance that runs along Land Park Drive and curves onto 15th Avenue.
Stallard said that by doing this, the zoo will use about 0.2 acres less of the park in its expansion.
Rick Stevenson, a Land Park volunteer who had spoken at the April council meeting and urged not destroying the statue, welcomed the news that it was no longer in the expansion area.
“I think it’s good for the zoo, it’s good for the neighborhood, it’s good for the park,” Stevenson said.
Another person who was pleased with the news was the city’s preservation director, Sean de Courcy, who said the statue was among Land Park’s oldest features and that the adjacent landscaping had been designed with the view in mind that it provides.
“I think that preserving that feature and the view shared will be is an important element of the park landscape,” de Courcy said.
He stopped short in his celebration, though, when asked if preserving the statue was a win for historic preservation. While de Courcy said he had young children who he took to the zoo, he admitted that even he didn’t take advantage of the statue.
“A real win for preservation would be to get more people visiting it and more people aware of the statue itself,” de Courcy said.
What comes next
When the city and zoo agreed to the MOU, it came with the understanding that the study and public engagement period would last for months.
The release of the diagrams is an early step in this process.
“I think only our hope is that putting this out there in the community is kind of the opportunity … to visualize what an expansion in Land Park would look like and to allow the community to share our exciting vision for getting this done right,” Stallard said. “So we’re looking forward to talking about these design drawings with the community.”
Sacramento Zoo CEO Dan Simon called the release of the diagrams on Thursday “just the next step in having this input period from the community.”
Simon noted that a webpage the zoo has set up about the expansion allows the public to offer feedback. “We’re just kind of kicking off the public input portion of this,” Simon said.
The zoo is planning to hold a series of public events in the months to come related to the expansion, with an open house scheduled for June 17.
“If people want to learn more, we want to give people the chance to do that and engage with us,” Stallard said.
This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 11:48 AM.
