The Detroit Zoo will add a $21-million penguin center as its largest exhibit, aided by a couple's $10-million gift announced Wednesday morning.
Image of the Detroit Zoo's current penguin display is by Cori Conz, via Flickr.
There will be 80 penguins from four species, as well as underwater galleries and a winter skating area, zoo director Ron Kagan announced, according to WDIV web producer Sade Askew.
The donation, largest in zoo history, comes from Stephen and Bobbi Polk Bloomfield Hills. He is chairman, president and CEO of R.L. Polk & Co., an automotive and marketing data company launched in Detroit in 1870 by his great-grandfather.
Zoo officials said a crew went to Antarctica to get ideas and research and want people to feel like they're experiencing the continent while they visit. . . .
Project leaders say they hope to have construction started in March of 2014 and a grand opening in the fall of 2015.
The penguin center will be larger than the polar bear and seal exhibit combined, Kagan says, with architecture that resembles a cracking iceberg.
“It was time for us to invent the next generation” for the penguins, Kagan is quoted as saying by The Detroit News.
He estimates that $8 million still is needed from grants and the public.
