An abandoned swimming pool.
There's no water - only broken concrete, a handful of bird cages and a wooden fence shielding the spectacle from bird-watchers.
Standing beside the pool, Executive Director Tim Brown smiles. He conjures up images of sunbathers in full-body swimming suits lounging along its flanks.
That was decades ago. The question now: "What do you do with a dilapidated swimming pool?"
Tracy Aviary wants to pitch a $19.3 million bond to voters this November to spruce up its central-city bird park - a debt that would cost Salt Lake County taxpayers $2.50 annually on a $235,000 home.
With that money, the aviary would enlarge its outdoor amphitheater, transform its south pavilion (now used for bird storage) into a walk-through rain forest and build an entirely new complex that would feature birds from the mangrove swamps of Mexico to the coastal regions of Panama.
As for the swimming pool? An outdoor education plaza would emerge with room for bird demonstrations.
Tracy Aviary began flapping its wings for that funding Tuesday, urging the County Council to give its request a place on the fall ballot. The council is expected to make that decision sometime next month, but a bipartisan majority appears supportive.
The aviary hopes the money will help restore its accreditation, which the Association of Zoos and Aquariums revoked two years ago, blaming the park's antiquated exhibits, deferred maintenance and insufficient funding.
Since then, the aviary's intern program has dried up. Other zoos have refused to exchange birds. And some donors have balked at opening their pocketbooks.
"We absolutely must get our AZA accreditation back if we want to be the aviary of Utah," said Davis Mullholand, chairman of the Friends of Tracy Aviary board.
If voters sign off, Mullholand said the aviary could apply for national accreditation as early as March 2009.
Construction would begin that same year, starting in September. The pavilion would come first with trees and tropical vegetation stretching high into an atrium now occupied by chain-link bird cages.
The Mexico-Panama building would come next, maybe with cypresslike trees and sticky humidity indicative of those climates. The education venues and reconstructed entry would come last. The time frame: three years.
"We need to nail that core, get it done and get out of there," Mullholand said.
Once complete, the aviary hopes to see its attendance more than double. About 70,000 visitors now meander through the attraction annually. Those numbers could grow to 175,000 a year by 2014, according to aviary estimates.
Running his finger over a poster-sized master plan in the aviary's historic mill, Brown said the funding request is simple: "You just can't have a place that you don't invest in; it's not going to take care of itself."
jstettler@sltrib.com
