GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan —
With growing yearly visitor numbers and no parking lot additions in over six decades, John Ball Zoo needed to add more parking. Where? Just south of the zoo.
But for some community members, like Juan Garcia and his daughter Essy, the land that used to be John Ball Park held memories.
“It's unfortunate. It's, it is what it is,” Garcia said. “At this point, we as neighbors were putting up, you know, trying to speak up and to have our voices heard throughout the process.”
Garcia is part of the Save John Ball Park collective, a group of community members who wanted to see John Ball Park saved.
But John Ball Zoo CEO Peter D’Arienzo said the renovation, while disappointing to some, was necessary.
“It is different, though, meaning there's a long history in the west side and people that may have been here many years have a different memory of how the space was, but much wiser people than me decades ago, 1980s, decided they wanted a successful zoo and an urban poor and set aside this land to support the zoo,” D’Arienzo said.
John Ball Zoo is one of the last remaining urban zoos, which means it’s close to Grand Rapids’ downtown.
With the over 200,000 cars that park in the zoo each year, and nearly 65% of visitors from out of Kent County, D’Arienzo said they need more paved lot space.
“Frankly [visitors] don't want to park on dirt and dust. You know, they're pushing a 4-year-old child in a stroller. Cars drive by and dust ends up in their face or the uneven grown with people that are mobility challenged, maybe in a wheelchair,” D’Arienzo said. “So this parking is going to be a big upgrade. It won't meet all our parking needs. You know, during busy times, there will still be a need to park on the grass, which is not something we want. We would prefer to park people in beautiful park light parking spaces.”
The new parking lot will have guests exiting on Butterworth Street and alleviate parking difficulties neighbors of the zoo experience during busy times.
D’Arienzo said it's difficult to meet every demand.
“You know, the original offer, from our perspective, is still on the table that never parked on the grass, but that requires a long-term parking solution that meets the needs of our guests while meeting the needs of our West Michigan and the west side,” he said. “And it's a challenging balancing act meeting all three parties.”
Once the parking lot is finished, it will have Sustainable Sites certification, which is a first for the zoo. Vice President of Planning and Sustainability Allmon Forrester said it’s almost a daughter program of LEED certification.
“How can you build better and build greener? 40% of everything harvested from the Earth every year goes into the built environment. So if we can have a small impact on that, it can speak loudly to everybody else on what's the best way to build parking lots in the future?”
Forrester said the new site will focus on using native pollinator plants, controlling stormwater from on-site, having a low carbon footprint and using proper building materials.
Solar trees will be put near the drop-off zones to welcome 800,000 guests to the park.
“Now we can welcome them through this new great green parking lot, and they can walk under these large solar trees that's producing all the power to power the parking lot, as well as provide shade, comfort, rain protection for all of our guests coming to the zoo,” Forrester said. “It is focused right after our, into our ginkgo tree on site. We had the fourth largest ginkgo tree in Michigan here at the zoo, and that's kind of the focal point of this parking lot going to this, this tree.”
A concern with the project was the removal of trees. But Forrester assures that 600 native trees and pollinator plants will be planted in their place.
“We're taking as much intentionality as we can to restore the area to the best green space as possible,” he said. “I think people are going to look at us going like, this is how parking lots should be put in when they have to be put in.”
Solar trees will also be over a bike area, which includes micro-mobility scooter parking for scooters such as Limes.
Pedestrian and local access to the zoo was brought up by Grand Rapids mayoral candidate David LeGrand at a debate on Monday.
“A funny analog is happening at the zoo right now. So the John Ball Zoo, they sent out a survey and asked people, 'would you like to have more, more free parking at the zoo?' And big surprise, the answer was yes,” he said. “So now they're going to pave over a chunk of John Ball Park, because everyone wants more free parking. One of the things that I think we have to start reminding ourselves is, you know, I'm going you know, how many parking spots a car take? I mean, a car takes one or two or three. How many a bike takes, zero. You know how many my shoes take, zero. So if we can actually build a world where people aren't using cars as much, our parking pressures are going to get reduced. So. We absolutely have to build.”
Garcia said even though concessions have to be made, it still hurts.
“It does sting. It's also when we heard that there was going to be provision to maintain, to save the rest of the green space in perpetuity. That did make us feel better,” he said. “And then recently hearing the zoo removed that commitment from their 2025 Master Plan drafts that they're submitting to the county that has made this sting a little bit more. So that's one thing that we're really hoping for is we understand that something needed to change for their goals, but also we just wish that they would keep us in mind in that project.”