Group wants a zoo in Cedar Rapids

An informal group of Cedar Rapidians wants to bring a zoo to the city.

They're not sure how big it will be, or how much it will cost, but they're looking into it. The group met for the first time Wednesday.

“Right now we're calling ourselves the Cedar Rapids Zoo Committee,” said Brandon Marsh, chairman of the committee. “It's a name we're still working on.”

Marsh is a web designer and stay-at-home father who had been running for the state legislature but dropped out in August. Tim Pugh, head of the Cedar Rapids Tea Party, is also on the committee. Marsh said the two of them thought of the zoo idea while Pugh accompanied Marsh and his children on a visit to the Bever Park Children's Zoo.

The committee's next meeting is at 7 p.m., Sept. 23, at the Starlite Room, 3300 First Ave. NE.

Once the group establishes what kind of zoo would be appropriate for Cedar Rapids - hopefully within a month, Marsh said - they can come up with cost estimates and take the proposal to private groups for funding. “The further we can stay away from tax money, the better,” Marsh said.

Now is a good time to pursue the project, Marsh said, because the city needs a boost in the post-flood era. A zoo would bring jobs and visitors to the city, he said.

“We'd like to bring it to the city council at the beginning of March,” he said.

Theirs won't be the first run at a zoo in Cedar Rapids. A group called Friends of the Zoo worked for much of the 1990s to plan and fund a wildlife park east of Cedar Rapids. They thought the Bever Park Zoo - which was eventually phased out in favor of the children's zoo - was an embarrassment to the community.

The wildlife park would have been funded with local-option sales tax revenue, but city commissioners dropped the project before the tax went to a vote in June 1998. The tax was then crushed at the polls, making the zoo a moot point.