Brownsville is hunting for a hotel developer for the Gladys Porter Zoo expansion

The city of Brownsville is developing a request for interest from developers to propose a themed hotel and restaurant next to the Gladys Porter Zoo. It’s the earliest stage of a future public-private partnership. 

The proposed hotel would likely be four stories tall, have 125 rooms and overlook the zoo’s African Savanna exhibit. That means visitors would have direct views of a watering hole where giraffes, cheetahs, gorillas, and other tropical animals gather. 

The 31-acre Gladys Porter Zoo is undergoing a $31 million expansion project that would double its size, add exhibits, and include a multi-level parking garage. Some new features include a soaring eagle zipline that takes visitors 135 feet up in the air. The expansion ensures the zoo will keep its accreditation from the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which now requires more space for animal exhibits. For example, the zoo lost its elephant exhibit back in 2006 due to space constraints. 

To make room for the expansion project, the city is retrofitting a public park next to the zoo and demolishing an old school. 

The city purchased the former Cummings Middle School from the Brownsville Independent School District for $16 million. That school included a Career Technical Certification Center, which will be relocated to a new building. 

Each year, more than 432,000 people visit the city-owned zoo. 

“This new possibility will enable us to build an expanded African Savanna. Not only will it have more animals, but we’ll have some different animals,” said Dr. Patrick M. Burchfield, CEO of the Gladys Porter Zoo, about the plans. 

That includes a 360-degree viewing area for its new lion exhibit, an ocelot exhibit along the resaca, a redesigned ‘small world’ animal experience to be more inclusive of individuals with disabilities, and a new building for nocturnal animals, which will provide more indoor spaces at the zoo. 

“We’re going to bring people in from the rain, the cold, the heat,” Burchfield said. “And every project we do, we’re thinking about our ever-increasing temperatures here in the Rio Grande Valley because we want to be able to advertise the zoo as rain or shine, hot or cold.”