CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is about to make a big splash over the next eight years.
Shedd Aquarium unveiled Monday a new, comprehensive strategic vision aimed at ensuring a more equitable, sustainable, and thriving future for people and aquatic life. Leading to the organization’s 100th anniversary in 2030, the multi-faceted "Centennial Commitment" is a transformational investment in Chicago communities and aquatic ecosystems around the world, requiring half a billion dollars and eight years to accomplish.
“Five years ago, we began to imagine a visionary future in response to the needs facing the aquatic animal world, our city, and our society in order to advance solutions to the biodiversity, climate, and equitable access to nature crises that exist around us,” said Dr. Bridget C. Coughlin, President and CEO of Shedd Aquarium, in a statement. “To ensure a shared future where resilient ecosystems and communities thrive together, it is going to take everyone to create collective impact and change. This means engaging neighbors, schools, and local businesses in authentic conversations, elevating science literacy, cultivating a shared environmental identity, and helping to inform conservation solutions that safeguard the most vulnerable species across the globe. The Centennial Commitment is our pledge to do the work that is necessary now, to ensure the next 100 years includes a world thriving with aquatic life that is sustained by people who love, understand and protect it.”
Ambitions within Shedd Aquarium’s Centennial Commitment center around three primary pillars — “For People, For Communities, For Aquatic Life” — and include:
• Deeper community investments and partnerships that not only bring the aquarium further into Chicago neighborhoods, but also bring neighborhood-level environmental discussions and solutions into new, expansive, dedicated community spaces within Shedd’s walls.
• A modernized aquarium experience through the transformation and restoration of the historic galleries and dynamic new exhibits that provide greater and more accessible entry points to see and connect with aquatic life as a springboard to inquiry and nature exploration.
• New educational and experiential programs created with equity and inclusion at the center that deepen science learning, increase environmental literacy and empower futures for youth.
• Compelling digital engagements that bring animals and conservation action programs from the aquarium into more hands and homes everywhere.
• Advancements in exemplary animal care and welfare for the thousands of animals in Shedd's care and to increase Shedd’s capacity to respond to more wildlife in crisis; and
• Accelerated aquatic research and science to address the largest threats to biodiversity and species extinction.
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The multi-year, four-phase construction project will begin in late 2022 and is expected to conclude in 2026 with new galleries, programs, and experiences opening each year on a rolling basis. The aquarium will remain open throughout the project’s duration.
A few of the project highlights include:
• A Modernized Experience: More accessible, interactive, highly immersive, and science-rich galleries will bring guests closer to the animals they love. Through this investment, Shedd intends to grow attendance to serve up to 2.3 million guests annually and dramatically increase the number of schoolchildren who receive a personalized learning experience facilitated by Shedd Aquarium’s informed and enthusiastic team. Additionally, as leaders in animal care and welfare, the development will re-envision all specialized water systems for the customized care and needs of over 1,100 species.
• A New Learning Commons: An expansive new experiential hub and curiosity incubator, the Learning Commons — located at the historic core of the aquarium on the main level — will unlock significant new ways to encourage and facilitate learning. The technologically advanced, flexible space will serve as a launchpad, increasing the amount of existing classroom space to increase the total number of students engaged at Shedd from 170,000 to 230,000 annually, and provide multiple areas and more opportunities for Chicago communities to gather, engage, and connect with animals, scientists and each other.
• A Centralized Science Hub: Five existing scientific laboratories will merge into one central, state-of-the-art Science Hub spanning microbial ecology, conservation science, water quality and chemistry, genome studies, and pathology. The integration will allow for greater proximity of work to create cutting-edge conservation science in the wild and within the aquarium, expansion of up-to-the-minute technology capacities, and promotion of intellectual synergies among clinicians, animal caretakers, field biologists, and scientists.
• Greater Physical Accessibility: New circulation pathways will significantly reduce the number of transitions between areas of the aquarium, allowing guests to have multiple options regarding where they can start their journey, and making navigation easier and more efficient for guests with strollers, wheelchairs, and other mobility needs.
• Activated Outdoor Spaces: The four acres of green space around the building — equivalent to 40 Chicago backyards — offer a myriad of possibility to serve as a living classroom while extending the aquarium’s conservation efforts. New and reinvigorated spaces will offer everything from a celebration of natural splendor to a comfortable place where guests can view the profound meeting of land and water. Increasing these direct connections to nature as well as biodiversity at all levels will bolster resilience on the lakefront while adding experiential value and environmental improvements.
The modernization of the historic galleries will serve as the largest capital project for the organization in recent history, preceded by the expansion of the Abbott Oceanarium in 1991 (and its reimagination in 2008), Amazon Rising exhibit in 2001, and Wild Reef exhibit in 2003. The aquarium’s current 450,000 square-foot footprint will not increase.
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Shedd opened its doors to the public in 1930 and has grown to become one of the world’s leading animal care, conservation, and education organizations, serving more than 200 million guests over the last nine decades. It draws the largest paid attendance of any Museums in the Park organization — two million people every year for nearly two decades, one-third of whom visit for free through Shedd’s commitment to admission access.
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