Utah's Hogle Zoo has broken ground on a sweeping $10.8 million expansion of its African Savanna exhibit, a project that will give giraffes a year-round indoor home, improve facilities for zebras and warthogs, and give visitors new ways to watch them up close. The More Room to Roam project is designed to advance care for the zoo's African Savanna animals while expanding guest access, and it's expected to be complete by summer 2027.
The project centers on a new indoor giraffe herd room that will rise where the current giraffe barn now stands, according to Utah's Hogle Zoo. The space will include specialized flooring, integrated medical areas and enhanced spaces for daily husbandry, giving keepers more tools to care for the herd year-round rather than just during warmer months. The zoo says the overall effort will also add year-round guest viewing spaces and increase capacity within the outdoor habitat, creating more opportunities for visitors to observe natural animal behavior and understand how wildlife species interconnect.
As first reported by ABC4 Utah, Utah Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Jamie Barnes attended the groundbreaking, saying the savanna expansion represents visionary planning, strong communities, investments, and an unwavering commitment to animal care and conservation education. The zoo notes the project is being funded largely through private donors and individual contributions rather than relying solely on public money.
New Stalls, Feeders and a Keeper Training Wall
Beyond the giraffe herd room, the expansion includes a broader hoofstock facility upgrade. Plans call for three additional stalls, automated watering systems and variable-height enrichment feeders meant to encourage natural foraging behavior among the animals. The facility will also include a keeper training wall that doubles as a VIP viewing area, giving guests a rare look at the training and husbandry work that typically happens behind the scenes.
A new VIP deck tied to the project will serve as a veterinary care space for voluntary husbandry and veterinary procedures, the zoo says. Meanwhile, Twiga Terrace, the zoo's existing giraffe-feeding platform, is getting its own makeover: a dedicated giraffe feeding area will give the herd enhanced access to food, while the terrace will also carve out additional space for the zoo's warthog family.
Animals Relocate as Construction Begins
Construction work affecting the animals began Wednesday, September 23, 2026, when giraffes, zebras and an ostrich started moving into the current barn and adjacent outdoor yards to make room for building crews. Hogle Zoo says animal care teams have planned for the animals' wellbeing and prepared them for changes in noise and access during the move.
A Separate City Permit Paints a Partial Picture
A commercial building permit filed with Salt Lake City offers additional detail on the scope of the work, according to Building Salt Lake. The filing describes a herd room that would allow year-round indoor viewing for both the public and the giraffes, plus a hoofstock holding area intended to let the zoo eventually bring new species into its multispecies exhibit — though the permit does not identify what those species might be. It also describes a new feed station with animal holding space underneath, intended to turn the existing Twiga Terrace into what the filing calls a 100-percent view deck for visitors.
The permit lists a work area exceeding 22,000 square feet and a building exceeding 8,593 square feet, but it lists the job value at $5.65 million — a different figure than the zoo's own $10.8 million project cost. The permit also does not include an estimated timeline for when construction could begin or end, leaving the zoo's own September 2026 start date and summer 2027 opening as the only publicly stated schedule.
How It Compares to Other Zoos
Hogle Zoo's push for better giraffe facilities echoes a similar project underway at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, which broke ground on an $18 million Giraffe Care Center expected to open in spring 2027. That facility will be more than ten times larger than Pittsburgh's existing barn, with room for up to six giraffes, a large dayroom, joint-friendly natural-substrate flooring and elevated feeders placing food up to 18 feet off the ground to mimic natural foraging. Pittsburgh's project, which has secured $11 million from donors, including a $10 million anonymous gift, and $2.3 million from public sources, is also intended to launch a giraffe breeding program under the Association of Zoos & Aquariums' Species Survival Plan.
Utah's Hogle Zoo, which sits on 42 acres of hillside terrain donated by the Hogle family in 1931, currently cares for more than 150 animal species, including 65 that are threatened or endangered. The African Savanna exhibit's giraffes, zebras and warthogs will move to the current barn and adjacent outdoor yards during construction, while the new herd room and hoofstock facilities take shape, with zoo officials pointing to summer 2027 as the target for welcoming guests into the finished space.
