The biggest build in the Zoo's 100-year history.
Ground broke in June 2025. When the work finishes in spring 2027, the Little Rock Zoo will greet visitors through a completely new front door — and four groups of animals will have new homes.
A new welcome, and four new homes
The Arkansas Zoological Foundation is raising funds and support toward the implementation of the Little Rock Zoo's Master Plan — a multi-phased upgrade that is a bold vision for the Zoo's future. The first and largest phase of that vision is now under construction.
It begins at the gate. A new front entrance plaza replaces the old approach with a space designed to be accessible, immersive and genuinely inspiring — two water features, a commissioned public art sculpture, and a refreshed amphitheater for Zoo programs and school groups.
Beyond the entrance, the animals get the real transformation:
- A redesigned lemur habitat, with far more climbing structure and a viewing path that brings visitors alongside the troop rather than looking in at it.
- A new anteater exhibit.
- A shared capybara and squirrel monkey habitat — a mixed-species space where two very different animals share one landscape, and capybaras return to the Zoo.
- A new tortoise barn providing modern indoor housing for the Zoo's tortoises and allowing for the public to feed the tortoises.
The project, entitled “Project Zoo: Wildly Reimagined,” is funded by a bond issue Little Rock voters approved in 2022, together with private donations raised by the Arkansas Zoological Foundation.
The bond builds the core. Foundation gifts fund the enhancements — the public art, the finishing detail, the extra enrichment inside a habitat — and the Foundation is continuing to raise money for further improvements beyond this phase.
How the new habitats will look
Renderings from the Zoo's design team for the habitats now being built.
How the build has gone
A project of this size moves in phases. Here is where things stand.
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Phase 1 · Summer 2025
Preparation and fencing
Construction fencing goes up and the work zones are separated from the visitor route so the Zoo can stay open throughout.
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Phase 2 · 2025
Plaza resurfacing
The old entrance surface comes up, making way for the new plaza, water features and sculpture.
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Phase 3 · 2025
Structure removal, demolition and site work
Outdated structures are removed and the ground is prepared for the new habitats and barn.
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Phase 4 · October 2025
Vertical construction begins
The project reaches its fourth phase and the new buildings and habitat frames start going up.
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Spring 2026
Habitats take shape
Steel and structure rise across the site as the lemur, anteater and capybara habitats become recognizable.
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Target · Spring 2027
Completion and opening
The new entrance, amphitheater and habitats open to the public.
The work in progress
Construction photography courtesy of the Little Rock Zoo.
Bond money builds it. Donors make it exceptional.
A public bond can pay for a habitat. It is private philanthropy that pays for the difference between adequate and remarkable — the enrichment inside the habitat, the shade over the viewing path, the interpretive signage that turns a look into a lesson, the public art at the entrance.
Those are the pieces the Foundation funds, and they are the pieces visitors remember.
The Foundation is also already raising money for the improvements that come after this phase. The Master Plan is multi-phased by design, and every phase depends on private support being there when the next one is ready to start.
Naming opportunities and leadership giving for this phase are handled personally. Call 501-661-7208.
One-time or recurring gifts go directly to habitat construction, Zoo improvements and conservation education.
Be part of the Zoo's next hundred years.
Help one of Arkansas' greatest treasures by donating today.