DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030698

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   88 lines

VIRGINIA ZOO PREPARES TO BUILD $10 MILLION EXHIBIT ON AFRICA

The Virginia Zoo is poised to launch the $10 million first phase of a long-range master plan that aims to put it on par with the biggest and best zoos nationwide and draw an estimated 200,000 more people to the city each year.

Ground breaking for the African exhibit - the first of five continental displays zoo officials plan to build - could take place before year's end, Jane Browning, president of The Virginia Zoological Society, said this week.

Lacking only $1 million of the $5 million needed from the private sector, zoo officials will put on ``the last big push'' during the final months of this year, Browning said. ``The good thing is, it's really going to happen. We're closing in on Africa.''

``We're right on target,'' Stanley Stein, director of Recreation, Parks and General Services for the city, said Thursday. Bids for the $10 million project are in hand, and a contractor soon will be named. All seven bidders are local.

The city will put up $5 million in match money for the exhibit, Stein said.

With $3 million accumulated after just six months of fund-raising, the zoo kicked off the final leg of its capital campaign to build the Africa exhibit a year ago.

Zoo officials anticipate that construction will begin before Jan. 1, Browning said.

If all goes according to plan, the naturalistic, state-of-the-art exhibit will open in late 1999.

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said Thursday that the project represents ``a labor of love on the part of a great many people for several years. . . . It's going to be a world-class zoo, an excellent addition to Norfolk attractions as well as a great place for our citizens to enjoy.''

During construction, the zoo will remain open. In fact, said Stein, special walkways will be built to allow visitors to watch the work in progress.

``We want people to be able to see the construction,'' Stein said. ``It will whet their appetites.''

When the Africa exhibit opens, zoo visitors will be able to watch herbivores such as giraffes, zebras and elephants grazing on an African savannah, and view predatory carnivores like lions lazing in the sun on a ``kopje,'' or granite outcrop.

``It will be like going on a safari right in Norfolk,'' said Browning. Visitors will be ``so close . . . a moat away,'' from the African animals, she said.

Separating people from giraffes, ostriches, rhinos, zebras and other African animals will be unobtrusive, invisible barriers. For example, plains animals will be viewed from the other side of a stream that neither animals nor humans can cross because of a submerged divide.

Stein said the naturalistic habitats are similar to those at zoos in New Orleans and Seattle, and they are designed by the same architect: Azeo ``Ace'' Torre of the New Orleans architectural firm of Design Consortium Ltd.

Some of the animals will be acquired; others, like the zoo's elephants and white rhinos, will be transferred from their present, cage-like settings to the new environment.

Also part of the exhibit will be an African village, or xaxaba, which will serve as a center for small displays, interactive components and African arts and crafts.

Zoo officials have available for use by community organizations a video that describes how they can get involved. The hope is that various groups will raise funds for the African project.

For example, said Browning, ``Navy ships, a PTA, could get involved. We'd love to have a Navy ship adopt'' the Africa exhibit. ``This is a community activity.''

She said fund-raisers will pitch the project to some potentially big contributors, as well.

``Zoos are living projects,'' she said. They represent ``more places for people,'' as well as animals.

Stein said there's no schedule for installation of the other four exhibits - Asia, South America, Australia and North America.

``It depends on the momentum,'' he said. ``I'd guess five to 10 years.'' The entire project is estimated to cost close to $60 million, he said.

In addition, a Dismal Swamp display spotlighting the natural treasure that is unique to this part of Virginia will center the continental exhibits.

``It's going to be a marvelous thing to behold,'' said Stein. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

A sketch shows a part of the planned African exhibit, called a

``kopje,'' or a granite outcrop. The spot will be included in an

area where giraffes, zebras and elephants will graze on an African

savannah.

Graphic

DETAILS

For details on the project, call Judy Luffman at 624-9937. KEYWORDS: NORFOLK ZOO EXPANSION

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