The $225 million price tag represents the second-largest capital campaign launched by a cultural institution in the region, surpassed only by the Philadelphia Orchestra's $245 million Regional Performing Arts Center.
``Raising that kind of money is not easy,'' said Nancy Burd, director of the Cultural Facilities Fund Program Philadelphia office, ``but the zoo is one of the few institutions in the region that might be able to do it.''
Zoo officials say they must. The master plan is seen as nothing less than a road map to survival for an institution that has slipped from excellence to mediocrity.
``We went through 40 years of neglect,'' Alexander Hoskins, the zoo's president, said. ``It took until the 1990s to realize that.''
The nadir of that descent was the 1995 Christmas Eve fire that killed 23 primates. It was the worst disaster in the history of American zoos. Since then, attendance has lagged.
While the new zoo is at least a decade way, the first step on this road to resurrection will come in June with the opening of the $24 million Primate Reserve. Officials say the exhibit - whose financing was separate from the master plan - is crucial to the zoo's future.
Hoskins said the Primate Reserve shows ``what the new zoo can be.'' The fact that it is being built on time and on budget has also helped the zoo reestablish some of its lost credibility.
``The zoo is in an interesting position of having to raise its confidence level as part of their fund-raising,'' Burd said. ``I think they are on the road to doing that.''
Said Hoskins: ``Step by step, we regain confidence. We do a high-quality project, pay for it, and build it on time.''
A decade of such steps and the zoo will be transformed.
