For some visitors to the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, the rarest attraction at the hugely popular Montgomery County destination is a parking spot.

But Norristown Municipal Council, zoo officials and attorneys are working diligently to take parking off the endangered species list. At a recent special council meeting officials presented council with proposals.

Representing the zoo were attorney Sean Cullen of Cullen & Conwell in Norristown; Martin Eustace, president of Willow Grove-based Eustace Engineering; and Albert J. Zone, executive director of Elmwood Park Zoo.

“Al Zone has done an incredible job of building one of the top zoos in the country, and if we’re able to get this parking lot together and have people stop going home because they can’t find parking, we’ll be able to get close to the Philadelphia Zoo’s numbers,” noted Cullen, writes Gary Puleo in The Times Herald.

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As the zoo continues to grow in popularity as a must-go destination, parking in the current lot can no longer accommodate the number of visitors.

The additional parking the zoo has sorely needed would be supplemented with an educational component, land preservation and a walking trail, as well as a solution to a water runoff issue, the proposal detailed.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Cullen said, acknowledging that the proposed development would be “a very complicated process because there are so many organizations involved. But what I can tell you is that everyone is basically on board with this project.”

Zone pointed out that “the county had approached the zoo three or four years ago, about the bike trail that will go from the Farm Park and go behind the zoo and connect down into Markley Street.”

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