COLUMBUS — The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is asking the city of Columbus for nearly $1 million to help pay for long-planned work on a sewer system that has been moving the zoo’s wastewater since 1983.
Zoo spokesperson Nicolle Gomez Racey said the requested funding would go toward planning, design and implementation of improvements to the sewer force main, the line that carries wastewater from the zoo to the public sewer system. The zoo has maintained the aging infrastructure for years, she said, and is now planning the next generation of utility assets needed to keep operations running.
The full project is expected to cost more than $10 million, although the zoo says a firmer price will only emerge once the design process is further along. Gomez Racey said the zoo is not planning to seek additional funding from Franklin County for the work.
The request is already written into City Hall’s plans. Mayor Andrew Ginther’s record-setting 2026 capital budget proposal, first presented Sept. 11, includes $950,000 for the zoo sewer project.
Gomez Racey also stressed what the sewer money is not for. The project is unrelated to the zoo’s planned $175 million John F. Wolfe Aquarium project and its hotel expansion, two much more visible undertakings that have drawn most of the public attention around the zoo in recent months.
The sewer request is the less glamorous side of running one of central Ohio’s biggest attractions: pipes, pumps and lines that visitors never see but that the grounds cannot operate without. A force main installed in 1983 predates much of the modern zoo, including entire themed regions added over the past four decades.
Columbus City Council takes up the capital budget at a hearing on Oct. 19, and members are expected to vote on the entire $2.8 billion plan later this year. If the zoo line survives that process, design work on the sewer upgrade can move forward with city help.
The zoo draws visitors from across Ohio and remains one of the region’s largest tourism draws. Its request now sits alongside roads, safety and neighborhood projects competing for the same capital dollars.
