The Park Boulevard Promenade: Frequently Asked Questions

The Park Boulevard Promenade (click on image for close-up view - Flash required)

Q: What is the Park Boulevard Promenade concept?
The Park Boulevard Promenade is an outgrowth of the many ideas set forth by a working group of concerned citizens and Balboa Park entities during a day-long design process.

This concept plan addresses parking and access to Balboa Park while allowing the San Diego Zoo to use more of its existing leasehold for animal habitats. The concept increases the number of parking spaces available to Balboa Park visitors and creates a landscaped promenade between the Zoo and Balboa Park institutions.

Q: How is access to Balboa Park addressed in the plan?
The concept plan calls for the development of a new below-grade, four-level parking structure that will provide 4,803 spaces for automobiles. More than a third of the parking structure, which extends approximately a quarter mile along Park Boulevard, is located below the area currently leased by the Zoological Society. The structure also includes a transit center for shuttles, taxis, and tour buses, as well as school buses serving Balboa Park museums and attractions. Landscaped pedestrian walkways on top of the parking structure replace asphalt-covered surface parking lots once occupied by about 3,000 automobiles, and create an enhanced continuous green belt along Park Boulevard, extending from the fountain near the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center to the grassy lawn around the War Memorial Building.

Q: Is there a need for more parking spaces in Balboa Park?
Studies have shown that the existing parking lots become full many days out of the year. Balboa Park and Zoo guests often end up parking in residential neighborhoods adjoining the Park. This plan is designed to reduce the impact of overflow parking on local communities.

Q: Don’t Zoo employees take up a lot of space in the current parking lot?
The Zoological Society of San Diego has worked with SANDAG (San Diego Association of Governments) to develop a vanpool program where groups of employees commute together from outlying regions of San Diego. This alternative still accounts for only a small percentage of employees, however. We estimate that, during peak hours, Zoo employee parking takes 700 to 800 spaces in the Zoo lot.

Q: Can't Zoo employees park somewhere else?
The Zoological Society of San Diego, in response to the concerns of our neighbors, has specifically asked all of its employees to park in the Zoo lot. This has significantly increased the impact of employees on this lot. Realizing that this is an issue which needs to be addressed, the San Diego Zoo has included an alternative for employee parking in the Park Boulevard Promenade concept plan. The proposed employee parking lot would be built in an area of the current Zoo leasehold that is not well suited to animal habitats, facing Highway 163.

Q. How will Zoo employees get to the new employee parking lot?
Employees will enter through an existing service entrance off Richmond Street. They will travel a new interior road to the employee parking lot. Constructing this road will require a minor lease-line adjustment along the Richmond Street off-ramp. This area is a man-made, previously graded slope that will be modified and re-vegetated to maintain the lush landscaping buffer.

Q. Will the Zoo employee lot create more traffic on Richmond Street and in the surrounding neighborhood?
Many Zoo employees already use Richmond Street when approaching the San Diego Zoo. The Environmental Impact Report indicates that this plan will not create additional traffic that will have a significant impact on this street. Any Zoo employee traffic on Richmond Street north of Upas will be negligible and very infrequent: only one car every three minutes northbound in the afternoon peak hour and one car every two and one-half minutes southbound during the morning peak hour.

Q: What is the San Diego Zoo’s current leasehold?
The San Diego Zoo's lease currently contains approximately 124 acres: 99 acres inside the Zoo fence for the zoological gardens and 25 acres for the parking lot. The Zoological Society also leases the miniature railroad site, approximately 3.43 acres, under a separate lease.

Q: How is the San Diego Zoo’s leasehold affected by this plan?
The Park Boulevard Promenade concept would allow the Zoo to use part of the 25 acres of asphalt parking lot currently located in front of the Zoo for animal habitats. The Zoo’s current leasehold would actually be slightly reduced by this plan.

Q: Does this plan reduce the amount of open parkland in Balboa Park?
This plan increases the amount of open parkland in Balboa Park by five acres.

Q: Is the War Memorial Building affected by this plan?
In this plan the War Memorial Building is not changed. A 100-space parking lot for this building’s use has been incorporated into the concept.

Q: How is the miniature railroad affected by this plan?
The San Diego Zoo owns and operates the miniature railroad and leases the area from the City of San Diego. This plan creates a new track for the railroad on a green belt located between the Zoo and Park Boulevard, enhancing the riders’ experience.

Q: How does this concept plan fit in with the Balboa Park Master Plan?
This concept fulfills many aspects of the Balboa Park Master Plan that were approved more than a decade ago and have never been implemented. (Example: the plan eliminates pedestrian/vehicle conflicts, eliminates visible parking lots, results in substantially less asphalt, increases open public parkland, and provides better visual and pedestrian linkages between the Zoo and Balboa Park's Prado.

Q: Why does the Zoo need more space?
The San Diego Zoo is committed to conservation, high-quality animal care, and education. The only way to fulfill this commitment is to have large, multi-species exhibits that immerse visitors in bioclimatic experiences while allowing animals space to behave as they would in the wild.

In 1984 a plan was developed by the Zoological Society of San Diego with the goal of converting old-style animal enclosures at the San Diego Zoo into modern, naturalistic habitats that more appropriately reflect the conservation mission of the Zoological Society. This process of converting old-style enclosures into environments has already begun. The old-style gorilla, tiger, and hippo enclosures have been converted to Gorilla Tropics, Tiger River, and Ituri Forest. These new exhibits give animals room to roam, but require more space.

Q: Why can't you just move extra animals to the Wild Animal Park?
The San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park are each very different from the other, by design and by climate. The San Diego Zoo's climate, with relatively constant temperatures and ocean breezes, provides the best environment for many tropical species. In contrast, the Wild Animal Park has a drier climate with a wide temperature range, falling below freezing in the winter and reaching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. There will always be some charismatic or severely endangered species that will be housed at both the Park and the Zoo. These populations will be kept separate to ensure their continued survival and to meet the expectations of visitors to both facilities. Furthermore, while it appears that there is ample land available at the Wild Animal Park, well over half of that land has been designated as a multi-species conservation preserve by the City of San Diego and can not be used to house exotic species.

Q: Hasn’t the Zoo expanded in the past?
Actually, historical documents and notes indicate that originally the San Diego Zoo’s leasehold was bigger than it is today. Many years ago some of the space originally designated for the Zoo was given to Roosevelt Middle School and to Balboa Park entities for their use.

Q: How will this plan be funded?
Currently the City of San Diego is completing a study of parking and access throughout Balboa Park. Understanding that this study may pinpoint additional needs within the Park, the Zoological Society of San Diego has promised not to pursue funding for this project until all access and parking needs for Balboa Park have been evaluated.

Click here to read about the Park Boulevard Promenade concept plan.