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Dean Steps Down as Zoo CEO

Jim Dean stepped down as president and CEO of the Memphis Zoo Wednesday.

Dean will be replaced by Matt Thompson, the zoo’s current executive director and vice president (and the Zoo Dude personality on the zoo’s social channels).  

“It was an honor and a privilege to be able to come back home to Memphis and be a part of this amazing team and help in the great work they do every day,” Dean said in a statement Wednesday. 

Dean is a native Memphian who served as president of SeaWorld and Busch Gardens before coming back to Memphis in 2019 to lead the zoo. Dean replaced former president and CEO Chuck Brady.

Dean was instrumental in leading the zoo through the final stages of the thorny parking issue that will, ultimately, end parking on the Overton Park Greensward forever. A news release from the zoo said Dean served on the board of the Overton Park Conservancy and “led many diplomatic conversations and initiatives with the city of Memphis.” He will remain involved in the project, the zoo said. 

“Jim had a keen attention to guest experience and appearance of the zoo that significantly impacts guests’ view of the zoo as soon as they walk through the front gates,” said incoming president Thompson. “He also impacted the internal experience for the employees in many ways, most importantly though, he increased communication between departments across the entire zoo.” 

Matt Thompson (Credit: Memphis Zoo)

Thompson has worked at the Memphis Zoo for 26 years. He began work there as a zookeeper and served later as assistant curator, curator, and Director of Animal Programs. In 2003, he was part of the team to escort the zoo’s pandas to Memphis from China. In 2019, he was named the zoo’s Chief Zoological Officer, overseeing the facility’s collection of more than 4,500 animals.

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New Deal Saves Greensward, Adds Parkland, Forest Land, and Zoo Parking Spaces

The Overton Park Greensward is kept whole in a new plan that will permanently end parking there, add 17 acres of forested parkland, add 300 parking spaces for the Memphis Zoo, and, perhaps, finally solve a decades-old problem. 

Leaders with the city of Memphis, Memphis Zoo, and Overton Park Conservancy (OPC), announced the new plan Tuesday afternoon. In it, properties will be reshuffled and repurposed to fit the needs of all involved. 

For decades, the zoo has used the 12-acre Greensward for overflow parking. The issue simmered until 2014 when Citizens to Protect Overton Park (CPOP) organized the “Get Off Our Lawn” campaign that brought the issue into focus and to the fore. By 2016, OPC and the zoo joined in mediation to find a solution. 

That solution aimed to reconfigure the zoo’s main parking lot to add 415 spaces, a number mandated by the Memphis City Council. This plan was paused to explore the cost of a new modular garage that would have been built on the surface lot on Prentiss Place. 

In 2021, projections put the cost of the garage at $5 million, above the $3 million both the zoo and OPC had committed to the original plan to reconfigure the main parking lot. In October, the groups announced they’d scratched the plan for the garage and would revert to the plan to pave the lot and take 2.4 acres of the Greensward. As construction was slated to get underway, this plan was halted late last year to explore other options.  

The new plan will:

• convert the zoo’s current maintenance facility (on the north side of the zoo on North Parkway) to zoo member parking

• add 300 new parking spaces for the zoo

• renovate and re-stripe the zoo’s current main lot (without expanding it) 

• vacate the city’s general services maintenance lot (about 12 acres on East Parkway) 

• add zoo maintenance facilities to that space on about six acres

• the remaining six acres will be converted to park space for visitors

 • this space will have a new access point to the Old Forest trails

•  establish a new walking trail around the north side of the Greensward, marking the separation from the field and zoo parking 

• return 17 acres of forest land to the Overton Park

• this land was held by the zoo for future expansion, particularly an exhibit called the “Chickasaw Bluffs”

• return a few acres of land close to Rainbow Lake from the zoo to the park 

• the zoo will give OPC $400,000

“This is a solution that we think works for everyone,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. “It adds significant new park space for Memphians, about 20 to 25 acres. 

“It preserves 17 acres of old forest and provides the zoo with the parking it needs as the top attraction in Memphis. It provides the zoo a quality maintenance area for its operations. It also provides both the conservancy and the zoo the opportunity to avoid spending for what has become an almost $2.5 million expansion of the existing lot.”

Some were shocked and disappointed when the garage idea was retired. However, Doug McGowan, the city’s Chief Operating Officer, said the project was more an exploration than a dedicated plan. When asked if this new plan was guaranteed to stick, McGowen said, “I guess it’s about as guaranteed as you’re going to get.” 

“You have all three organizations coming together saying this really brings us closer together in alignment, and that it forges the same vision of the park in the future,” McGowan said. “And the mayor and the council are behind it.”   

Strickland said work on the project will begin as early as this fall, when some fences begin to come down. The city won’t leave the general services area until summer of next year, however. This means the zoo can’t move its maintenance operations and Greensward parking will continue at least through this year and probably longer.  

When asked how the agreement came about, Tina Sullivan, executive director of the OPC said the groups simply continued to work on it. 

“Our organizations have come together to create a plan that sees them as parts of a united whole,” Sullivan said. “The zoo and the conservancy share a common focus on conservation. Today reflects a convergence toward our shared mission and our community partnership.”

Zoo president and CEO Jim Dean called the agreement “transformational” for the zoo. 

“The city’s General Services facilities will vastly improve our infrastructure at the zoo,” Dean said. “When completed, this project will not only solve our short-term parking requirements and help traffic flow. It will also provide a solution for our long-term parking needs.” 

Once the work is finished and the last car leaves the Greensward, Sullivan invited “all of you to a picnic and a very competitive game of volleyball on that space.”  

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Zoo Lot Construction to Begin Monday

Brandon Dill

It’s the beginning of the end for parking on the Overton Park Greensward.

Construction is slated to begin Monday on a project that will reconfigure the Memphis Zoo parking lot, adding an additional 415 parking spaces. Those spaces are expected to end the decades-long practice of parking cars on the Greensward, the grassy field adjacent to the zoo’s parking lot.

The first phase of the project will focus on the Prentiss Place parking lot, on the northwest side of the zoo. Work there will take about three months, and during that time, the lot will be completely closed. Once complete, the new Prentiss Place lot will have gained 108 parking spaces.

Prentiss Place is expected to stay open as a two-way street for most of those three months, though some closures are expected to complete pedestrian crossings and on-street parking.

savethegreensward.org

Construction crews will then begin work on the main zoo lot, just south of the zoo entrance. That work is slated to start this fall and winter, an optimum time to transplant many trees, which officials have said is necessary to the project.

During it all, the zoo’s North Parkway entrance will be staffed and open on busy days when overflow parking is expected. This will give access to the zoo from the nearly 200 on-street parking spots on North Parkway.
[pullquote-1] “By executing on this project, we’ll fulfill [Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s] promise to put 30-plus years of controversy behind us by permanently ending parking on the Greensward, as well as accommodating the growth of one of the nation’s top zoos,” Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We will surely have some growing pains as we work through the construction, but we’re committed to strong communication to make sure park visitors, zoo patrons, and neighborhood residents know what to expect.”

New zoo president and CEO Jim Dean said he was “very happy” to have the “strong” support of the Overton Park Conservancy, Overton Park Alliance, and the city of Memphis.

“The Memphis Zoo has been a part of Overton Park since 1906,” Dean said. “We have grown quite a bit since then and have faced some challenges.

The hotly contested battle for the Greensward

“We’re happy this resolution will, once complete, end parking on the Greensward. We are also excited about strengthening and growing our partnership with the Overton Park Conservancy and the Overton Park Alliance to continue to make Overton Park one of the best parks in the country.”

Tina Sullivan, executive director of the Overton Park Conservancy, said community support made the project possible and “is a testament to Memphis’ love for Overton Park.”

“We look forward to the day very soon when park visitors can look from the Doughboy statue to Rainbow Lake across a beautiful Greensward that is free of cars,” Sullivan said.

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Memphis Zoo Names New President and CEO

Jim Dean

The Memphis Zoo will be under new leadership later this month.

The Memphis Zoological Society Board of Directors voted Tuesday evening to select Memphis native and University of Memphis graduate Jim Dean as the new president and CEO of the zoo.

Dean will begin his tenure at the zoo on April 29th, replacing Chuck Brady, who served as president and CEO for 15 years.

“I am excited to be returning to Memphis after more than 30 years away, and especially excited to be joining a world-renowned tourist attraction like our Memphis Zoo,” Dean said. “It is an honor to be entrusted with the leadership of this outstanding attraction.”

Dean has worked in the tourism and attraction industry for more than 30 years. He’s recognized for his work in conservation, animal welfare and education, and managing world-class attractions, the zoo said.

He’s held leadership positions at attractions such as Busch Gardens, Sea World, Discovery Cove, and Visit St. Pete Clearwater.

Thomas Farnsworth III, chairman of the Memphis Zoological Society board, said Dean is the “ideal candidate” for the position.

“If ever there were an ideal candidate with the right mix of business experience and background to take the Memphis Zoo to the next level, it’s Jim,” Farnsworth said. “The zoo is already Memphis’ highest attended attraction and has been ranked the top zoo in the country by two independent surveys.

“With Jim’s background and vision, and building upon the work done by Chuck Brady in building the quality of animal experience and habitat during his years with the organization, the future of the zoo is very bright.”