With the hotel no longer a mandated part of the project under the deal, the minimum development budget required by the county drops from $99 million to $47 million and the hiring requirements from 304 jobs to 225. Commissioners in 2020 approved a $13.5 million economic-development grant for the project, to be paid out of bond funds borrowed against property taxes. The hotel switch touches on another source of friction for opponents of the project. Miami Wilds also plans to build an affordable-housing complex there. The revised agreement includes a big change in the plan: a 200-room hotel near the zoo’s entrance is no longer a developer requirement, with the planned location moving to county owned land nearby where there used to be U.S. Levine Cava recommended accepting the new deal. Study prowling works of feline art as you meander past large cats along the zoo’s walking path, or scratch a thankful beast behind its ears in the. The Gulf Breeze Zoo houses more than 900 exotic animal species in a lush, tropical environment. For 4, you get one child admission (an 8 value). Commissioners are scheduled to vote on those extensions Wednesday. For 6, you get one adult admission (a 12 value). Commissioners approved the project in 2020.Īs developers battle environmental groups in court, they’ve missed milestones required under the original 40-year lease and need extensions from Miami-Dade. Miami-Dade voters in 2006 endorsed a for-profit entertainment center outside the zoo, which is a county park, provided none of the construction occurs on environmentally sensitive land. “I must ask, how can the zoo profess to have conservation as a main pillar, yet allow for this project to continue on its own property? It is the definition of hypocrisy!” “ I can no longer just sit back and watch developer dollars dictate the future of Miami-Dade County, especially in my own backyard,” Magill wrote in a letter he said he sent to Miami-Dade commissioners as a private citizen and not a county employee. It also has the county deal taking fire from a county employee who has long served as the zoo’s global ambassador: communications director Ron Magill. The controversy has sparked a showdown between the administration of county Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, which negotiated the revised deal, and the environmental advocates that the Democratic mayor is courting for her 2024 reelection campaign. 8 filing in a lawsuit filed by Bat Conservation International trying to block the project. “Plaintiffs bizarrely claim that all of Zoo Miami and its surrounding lands - including its existing parking lot - are environmentally sensitive land that is unsuitable for development,” assistant county attorney Monica Rizo wrote in a Dec.
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