MIDLAND, Texas — The Zoo Midland project is preparing to bring the wild to West Texas! Now, while the zoo is still a few years out from opening its gates, they've made a lot of progress as of late.
On Thursday, April 18, Midland Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved the zoo's request for a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center located at 1507 Todd Drive. The center will be approximately 15 minutes down the road from Zoo Midland located at 6101 W Wadley Avenue.
"It's sort of like a dream come true," said Zoo Midland Director Jason Green. "I mean, to build your own zoo and to be a part of that kind of an impact and a fingerprint on what the finished product is."
Zoo Midland is an exciting new project that is expected to open in 2027, but there is a lot of leg work to be done before then.
Green said they want to have an off-site property so they can present themselves in the best light at Zoo Midland.
The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center will occupy four acres of land and have three main functions.
"We want to be able to store hay in our off site, so we want to be able to store our hay in the bigger trucks off site and then once a week we'll go and get the 20 to 30 bales that we need," Green said. "We're also having a couple of greenhouses that we'll use one to grow a lot of the produce which we're excited about doing."
Green has been in the zoo business for over 30 years, and he understands that having a fluid building makes the animal adventure memorable.
"A lot of zoos are, you know, because there are, you know, 100 years, 75 years old, 50 years old. They may have been kind of out on the suburbs, but then the suburbs grew around them, and so they're kind of landlocked," Green said. "In kind of my experience, it was best to kind of go ahead and let's map out not just the zoo we want to have in the next couple of years, but where do we want to be in 20 or 30 years?"
The off-site property is not too far from the actual zoo, so, if you want to pass by you don’t need cheetah speed to get there.
"One of our goals with the Zoo Midland is we want kind of the back of house to be very much like the front of house," Green said. "If you go behind the scenes, you can't really tell the difference necessarily. There may just be one side you need an escort to kind of walk around on the other side and you're free to, you know, roam around."