St. Jude wants to take over the downtown city/general services maintenance area near its campus, and the city is beginning to think about moving both it and the one in Overton Park to one consolidated location. The zoo has ideas about what might be a good use for that space. They want overflow parking first and foremost.
I think a better plan would be to have them build a garage (instead of continuing to add surface asphalt to the park) in their current staff parking/maintenance area, inside the current zoo footprint, and let them use a part of the maintenance area for greenhouses or whatever they need (provided they provide much more appropriate screening for other park users than they have been willing to along their other park boundary fences) and keep most of that area for park. Jimmy Jalenak of the zoo has been actively promoting this plan, but the tricky bit is finding funds for a parking garage (which is never as high on the zoo's list of priorities for its money as the new, sparkly exhibits).
The current masterplan has a second greensward in the Southeast corner of the park, and we need more free, open space in the park. Maybe we could put up soccer goals again, since the zoo never returned the ones to the Greensward that they removed for parking. Soccer was a highly popular activity until we lost the goals.
The CA has an article beginning the pubic debate. Let your voice be heard by the city!
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