Zoo Atlanta veterinary facility due for $22 million expansion

Zoo Atlanta is building again.

The nonprofit Grant Park attraction, seemingly never without a construction project, will be radically expanding its veterinary facilities.

A $22 million fundraising campaign, already underway, will pay to expand the 1,600-square-foot facility to 10 times its size, and bring animal care at the zoo into the 21st century.

The zoo has already raised $13.7 million for the project, and needs another $8.3 million in donations to cover the cost.

Donations for the project include an $8 million grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, according to the Saporta Report.

The zoo’s veterinary services are currently housed in a structure that was once used by the city of Atlanta as a lawn care maintenance facility.

The zoo envisions the new veterinary care center as a teaching establishment as well as an animal care facility, capable of livestreaming procedures there to veterinary students at the University of Georgia.

The project is the latest in an ambitious program of expansion at the zoo, under the guidance of president and CEO Raymond B. King.

In 2018 the zoo began the Grand New View project, which added almost four acres to the zoo’s footprint, enlarged the elephant exhibit and remade the old Cyclorama building into the 57,724-square-foot Savanna Hall events venue.

That undertaking also included creating a welcoming entrance plaza for arriving guests.

Three years earlier, in 2015, the zoo opened the $19 million Scaly Slimy Spectacular reptile and amphibian house, a 14,000-square-foot indoor snake and alligator palace, covered with a glass dome.

The new veterinary building should require 15 months of construction, and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2024.