ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Monroe County announced a new design that will totally transform the front entrance of the Seneca Park Zoo and add a Tropics building.

The total cost of the project is roughly $100 million.  Monroe County will cover $34.5m, NYS has committed $42.5m and the Seneca Park Zoo Society will raise the additional $23m. 

The new design includes a total remodel of the zoo entrance and ticketing area and the addition of a Tropics building that would house two different indoor rainforest areas, an aquarium with a 150-thousand gallon tank, event space, a zoo store and zoo offices.   New animal additions that would live in the tropics building include Orangutan, Fossa, Lemur, Sifaka, Komoda Dragon, Clouded Leopard, Small Clawed Otter, Siamang, Blacktip Shark, Cownose Ray, Jellyfish, Mudskipper, Seahorse and Python.   

This isn’t the first time a design has been proposed for this project. In 2023, the county chose a different design but when it came time to build, only one construction company wanted the job and its bid was $174m with nearly $7 million of additional upgrades. 

“I had made a commitment to this community that we have to stay on budget, this isn’t a project that we can just put endless dollars in, so we had to go back,” says Monroe County Executive Adam Bello.  So, a new company with a new design was brought in.

Jennifer Lewke, News10NBC: “Are you confident this time that you will get bids that are close enough to what your estimates are?”

Adam Bello, Monroe County Executive: “I am confident, yes and as we were working through the process of working through this new design, that was the first question I asked everybody, that was the number one priority here…I really liked working with the team that we chose because they were honest about certain things that you can or can’t have if you want to stay in the budget.”

Over the next several months Bello says the county will be working to firm up the design and put the project out to bid again with a targeted completion date in late 2028 or early 2029

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