Construction is scheduled to start in October on the first phase of major improvements at the Great Plains Zoo.
A groundbreaking for the new butterfly garden, which will be relocating from Sertoma Park, is planned for October, zoo leaders said.
“It’s a very exciting time for us,” said Becky Dewitz, CEO of Sioux Falls Zoo & Aquarium. “I’m delighted with it. It’s so classy and elegant, and it exceeded my expectation.”
The butterfly garden is one piece of the zoo’s next major improvement project, which includes an aquarium and education center. The design calls for expanding the zoo’s main building, which used to house the Delbridge Museum of Natural History.
The butterfly garden will span about 5,000 square feet and create a different exterior look for the campus.
The zoo shared updated designs that show how its new main entrance would look. The butterfly garden’s glass enclosure also will tie into the entry to the outdoor exhibits.
“You’ll see it on the plaza, so it’s one of the first things you see when you come into the zoo,” said Jason Hill, a partner in SHR Studios who is the exhibit designer for the butterfly garden, aquarium and animal spaces within the education center.
Hill previously worked on award-wining projects such as the Owen Sea Lion Shores at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium for sea lions and harbor seals and a Galapagos Islands exhibit at the Houston Zoo.
With the Sioux Falls project, “I love it,” Hill said. “The part that I love so much is you’re taking an existing institution and you’re adding another successful institution to it and manifesting that physically through this aquarium and butterfly garden. It’s not just a new exhibit renovating one portion of the zoo. We are creating an entirely new experience at the Great Plains Zoo.”
The butterfly garden will be “very contemporary, very elegant” with lush plantings and a temperate environment designed to be comfortable year-round, he said.
A central feature called The Lantern will become a place to sit or host a small event, similar to a gazebo.
A water feature inspired by Falls Park “will be made out of Sioux quartzite with water spilling into a koi pond,” Hill said. “We’ve got the focal point at the end of the garden, the tree of life, which is a steel sculptural tree we’ll grow living vines on and light up at night.”
Visitors will be able to feed the butterflies and view a lab where caretakers are growing the collection through the life cycle.
“There will be lots of opportunities to sit and be on an overlook cantilevered over the water … so it will feel like a unique space unlike any I’ve seen before,” Hill said.
The butterfly garden is scheduled to open in early 2027, allowing the former Butterfly House & Aquarium to be used then as a staging and operational building as the aquarium is under construction. It will become the place where fish and sharks can be quarantined before the aquarium’s opening and where staff offices can be located temporarily.
The approximately 12,000-square-foot education center is scheduled to break ground in the spring of 2026, with the 35,000-square-foot aquarium following in the summer. Both would open in 2028.
Hill said he’s about 65 percent done with design on the aquarium, with plans to bring it forward early next year.
“There’s a lot” he’s excited about with it, he said.
“I think people will really gravitate toward the shark tunnel and the opportunity to see some of these animals in really immersive ways,” he said.
“The thing I’m most excited about is the sand play area by the penguins. You can play with these animals, and that’s something I would love to see my kids experience. That’s unique not just to this region but to the industry. It’s about more than seeing the animals. It’s about experiencing the same habitat.”
The overall enhancement to the zoo campus is designed to turn it into a year-round destination, aiming to increase annual visits from about 250,000 to more than 400,000, with an economic impact of $548 million in the Sioux Falls area over 10 years. That includes $340 million in direct spending by the Sioux Falls Zoo & Aquarium and more than $200 million in off-site spending.
“People in our region … drive places. We will go two or three hours to go shopping and spend time in a community,” Dewitz said. “That is not like the rest of the U.S. So we have very strong numbers that are defendable with the data we used, but we’re conservative in our modeling, so I think this too is a conservative economic impact study.”
Staying on track requires raising about $12 million more to match the lead matching gift of $25 million from Denny Sanford. There also are opportunities remaining for some naming rights, including the butterfly garden.
“We are launching into the next phase of our capital campaign,” Dewitz said. “It’s because of our community rallying behind this project and believing in this project that has gotten us to where we are today.”
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