San Antonio Zoo coral-lab design sent to Design Review Committee over parapet height

The Historic Design Review Commission on June 18, 2025, voted to send the San Antonio Zoo's proposed coral lab design to the Design Review Committee (DRC) for further review of rooftop equipment screening and final parapet height and detailing.

Commissioners said the tall parapet shown on the south elevation could compete visually with the adjacent historic building and asked the zoo and its architect to develop equipment selections and additional design articulation before the commission issues final approval. Ben Barton, director of capital construction for the San Antonio Zoo, and Dale Austin, architect with Samland Group, presented the proposal and answered commissioners' questions about rooftop equipment and screening.

“The parapet kind of wraps around the corner, to hide some equipment,” a commissioner said during review, and asked for either staff review of final parapet height or a return to the DRC once equipment dimensions are known. Barton said the project team expects to use typical DX rooftop units and planned the parapet primarily for visual screening. “We do plan on having some rooftop equipment, and so we were gonna use that to help do visual screening,” Barton said.

Commissioners pressed that simply increasing parapet height to accommodate equipment would not be an acceptable solution without additional wall articulation or a design change to reduce the parapet's visual impact. One commissioner urged staff to be "very sensitive to what is absolutely necessary" and suggested additional elevation articulation if equipment required a taller screen.

The commission's final motion withdrew an earlier approval and referred the item to the Design Review Committee; the applicant agreed to work with staff (Edward and project staff) to schedule that follow-up as soon as equipment selections and refined design details are available. Commissioners indicated the project team could return as soon as the applicant's schedule allows; staff noted the next available meeting would be the following week if the applicant were ready.

Vote: The referral motion passed unanimously. Recorded votes during the roll call were: Mammon (yes), Savino Velasquez (yes), Galloway (yes), Mazuka (yes), Groop (yes), Cervantes (yes), Holland (yes), Fetzer (yes), and Jay Maurice Gibbs (yes).

The commission's action is procedural: it sends the coral lab design to the DRC for further design review and does not constitute a final certificate of appropriateness. The Office of Historic Reservation will continue to coordinate scheduling and staff review; any certificate of appropriateness will be issued only after applicable reviews and permits are completed.