Zoo’s canopy walk is to begin construction today
Goal is to open the Redwood Sky Walk in September
The new name for the multimillion-dollar canopy walk at Sequoia Park Zoo was unveiled Wednesday: It will be called the Redwood Sky Walk.
Construction of the new feature at the zoo begins today, staff said during a news conference that included ceremonial groundbreaking with golden shovels.
“The canopy walk has been on our radar since 2006,” said zoo director Gretchen Ziegler. “All this while, we have been trying to build momentum and funding for it. We always knew it was a great idea, but it took a while to get us to this point.”
Greenway Partners’ Kirk Cohune, who is the project manager, called the project a “true collaboration.”
“This project will provide people access to an experience in the redwood trees that head over in the direction of the duck pond road,” he said. “That is going to get people up to 100 feet at the highest elevation. … When you are on the experience further out into the forest youre going to be over 100 feet. You’re going to feel very exposed. It’s going to be a great experience.”
He said there will be nearly 1,100 feet of walkway to explore with both an “adventure” side in which the bridges may sway a bit and an “accessible” side that is aimed at allowing people of all abilities to experience the canopy walk.
Synergo, the company that will be building the canopy walk, was granted a $2.3 million contract with the city of Eureka at a city council meeting earlier this month.
The company’s co-owner expressed excitement about working on the project.
“We get to help this community grow, help this zoo grow and … what really excites me is (to) provide an opportunity for people to do something different in the trees,” said Synergo’s Erik Marter. “Instead of walking through the trees looking up, walk through the trees and look down. Most of us don’t get that opportunity very often.”
The goal, said zoo foundation executive director Leigh Pierre-Oetker, is to open up the canopy walk in September. At that time, the zoo hopes to share more about a new bear and coyote exhibit that is being funded through a partnership with Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria. The tribe contributed $3.5 million for that effort.
With the new features, Pierre-Oetker said there would be an increase in price for visitors to the zoo, but it’s unclear what the increase will be.
“Part of the reason we’re doing that is because we have been advised not to have two separate admission prices — one for the skywalk and one for the zoo — so we felt it was better to put it all in one price,” said Pierre-Oetker.
She stressed the zoo will continue to have programs that allow low-income residents with EBT cards to pay a discounted rate and there are passes given to local groups.
“We’re always going to want to make the zoo as accessible as we can, for sure,” she said. “… I’d rather bring in the tourists who can pay top dollar and make sure our community members have access in other ways.”