Opponents of Moving Zoo Produce 15-Minute Video

Opponents of moving the Baton Rouge Zoo from its location near Baker have produced a 15-minute video explaining the advantages of keeping the zoo where it, while expanding recreational opportunities near the zoo.
According to Coleman Brown, who represents the Chamber of Commerce of East Baton Rouge Parish, their alternate plan includes:
•    Provide a waterpark adjoining the Capital One pavilion
•    Provide a new elephant exhibit within the Asian exhibit
•    Connect existing zoo parking to the Greenwood Park entrance road
•    Relocate the first tee of the Clark Golf Course and the driving range to the Dumas Golf Course
•    Upgrade and provide 10 lighted tournament soccer fields on 65 percent of Clark Golf Course.
•    Provide Clark Adventure Park, amusement rides and picnic enhancements in the 35 percent remaining at Clark Golf Course using the first tee facilities
•    Use the current entrance to  Greenwood Park as the entrance to the zoo and expand the zoo train into the Greenwood disc golf area
•    Provide a six-foot-wide first phase four-mile walking path around Dumas and Greenwood
•    Provide a digital zoo billboard on the west side of the airport at Interstate 110 a mile south of the Highway 19 exit. Sell ads, promote the zoo at Greenwood. Provide horse trails.
•    Replace smaller obstructed blue state highway signs with large brown tourist signs like those at the LSU Burden center on Essen
•    Construct an equestrian tunnel beneath Highway 19 to the 399.5 acre mitigation land bank and execute a cooperative endeavor agreement with Southern University to use their nearby recently-constructed 60,000 square foot equestrian center.
•    Use the two abandoned residences at the zoo as part of the overnight cabins
•    Provide a day care center in the new adventure park area off the Thomas Road entrance
•    Provide a recreation center between the Cane’s Dog Park and the tennis courts
•    Assist development of Southern University’s 30-acre retention lake as part of the Comite Diversion watershed.
•    Connect the Baker Recreation Hub to Greenwood Park and Profit Island in the Mississippi River via existing natural and Baker canal kayak streams creating a 3,000 plus acre Baker Recreation Hub.
•    Encourage new private residential development in the Baker hub and the adjoining undeveloped private 78 acres immediately east of Greenwood Park.
•    Connect the Baker hub to Downtown Baton Rouge via the Scotlandville Parkway
Brown said his group is raising four new issues bolstering their opposition to moving the zoo:
•    State stormwater officials say potential zoo locations south of Florida Boulevard fall in MS 4 district with 10 times the treatment cost of Greenwood. This would add operating costs estimated at $1 million per year.
•    The group is asking why the South Baton Rouge zoo revenue per visitor has been inflated over Greenwood by 30 percent?
•    The Nicholson site for the zoo is 12 minutes farther away from an Interstate than Greenwood. The Airline site for the zoo flooded five months after the BREC report on moving the zoo.
•    Airline and Nicholson South Baton Rouge sites for the zoo have far more crime than Baker, which is Louisiana’s safest city.

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