AEC Construction Inside the Fence, Part 2: What's in the Building?

Time for part two of my new series featuring behind-the-scenes photos of the construction at African Elephant Crossing, the Zoo's new world-class elephant habitat scheduled to open in Spring 2011. In my first article, we looked at what's behind the old Pachyderm Building. Now let's venture inside.
The previous home of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo's elephants was the Pachyderm Building which opened to the public in 1956 (read more). If you've been to the Zoo lately, you'll notice that the building shell remains. The interior has been gutted to make way for a larger and more modern facility for the elephants, their keepers and Zoo visitors. During my tour, I saw something I had never seen before -- the basement of the old building. The basement is being renovated to serve as the electrical room for the new building. Here's a shot of the basement looking in from behind the building:



The animal area is upstairs. If you remember, the old building housed elephants at one end with other animals along the main corridor. In the new building, the main corridor will contain several elephant parlors. Here's a shot from the old space:



The next photo shows the construction of the African aviary -- at the moment it just an open space surrounded by rebar:



And last of all, here's a shot of what will eventually be the entrance to the main building at African Elephant Crossing:



Comments

 
By: Taylor
On: 09/11/2009 17:48:05
Is there still going to be a part 3? As I remember you saying in part one there would be one part on design standards of elephant exhibits which I thought would be interesting to read. Thank you for all the updates though! It's really cool to see the progress of this incredible exhibit.

Keep them coming

Taylor

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