Zoo Ostrava The Annual Report 2009

Ostrava Zoo – the zoo office and main entrance
The development period for the project documentation funded by the SCO’s grant is 2009 and 2010, with costs
estimated to exceed CZK 3 million including VAT. The final price will be specified based on a public tender. The
existing main entrance and zoo office had failed to comply with the recent needs of the zoo operations a long
ago. The technical conditions and spatial arrangements of the main entrance are insufficient for handling
the recent visitor numbers in a cultivated manner. The set of interconnected portable cabins looking like
a construction site that forms the Ostrava Zoo’s headquarters was designed to serve as a temporary facility in
1960s, and is now about to reach its service life. It is unsatisfactory in terms of space; what's worse, the energy
demand of the facility is enormous. The shortage of places in the visitor car park is another critical issue. There
are no facilities for holding presentations and lectures. To address not only the operational issues, but also
to gain a new attractive area in the zoo grounds by clearing the existing operational building, a decision was
made that both planned facilities would be constructed in place of the existing main entrance structures and
interconnected in terms of operations. The project also covers a car park in front of the entrance, with 136
visitor car sites to be set up in the territory near the entrance, with some of them now already in use. The
service building will be a two-storey facility containing offices, service entrance, cash offices, social facilities
for the horticulture department members (i.e. gardeners) and offices for other departments of the zoo.
Facilities will include a staff meeting room, presentation room including the background premises, a large
zoo store and visitor toilets (including those for physically challenged) and a room for mothers with babies. In
2009, the building permit design documentation was finished.
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