Naples Zoo seeks land certainty ahead of $100M campaign

As Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens works toward a more than $100 million capital campaign and financial endowment, its $1 yearly lease is creating uncertainty and obstacles for donors and grant makers. 

The lease for 52.6 county-owned acres at 1590 Goodlette-Frank Road N. ends in November 2039, but zoo and county officials are starting the process early to negotiate changes to benefit both parties. 

“We are going to be asking major donors in our community to consider making a major philanthropic commitment to and investment in the zoo’s long-term future,” said Naples Zoo President and CEO Jack Mulvena. “That long-term future extends decades beyond 2039, and so we need to act today to begin to secure that future.” 

For that reason, the Board of County Commissioners on Aug. 25 agreed to ask county staff and zoo officials to look at lease options, such as a fee-simple lease or long-term lease. A fee-simple lease represents permanent ownership of property, while a long-term lease grants temporary use. 

Commission Chair Dan Kowal, whose district covers the zoo, told commissioners zoo officials want to create an endowment but need to assure philanthropic donors that their investments are solid. 

“When somebody puts their name on an endowment in their family’s name to pledge something over many decades of their family’s wealth through an organization, they want some sort of guarantee that … it’s not going to disappear a decade later,” Kowal said, calling the zoo a great local asset. 

He noted the zoo had a hard time after Hurricane Ian. 

“The animals don’t go anywhere, the staff don’t go anywhere, and they have to be able to continue maintaining and feeding the animals even though they’re not open to the public,” Kowal said, noting the zoo lost needed ticket sales while closed. “They don’t get any money from tourism tax dollars. They don’t get anything from us; other than they lease our property.” 

From Caribbean Gardens to zoo 

The zoo had operated as Caribbean Gardens since botanist Henry Nehrling purchased the land in 1919 to avoid another “disastrous freeze” to his plant collection in Central Florida. At the time, that part of Naples was being sold as agricultural farm plots. It was Col. Lawrence and Nancy Jane Tetzlaff, Midwest zoo operators known as Jungle Larry and Safari Jane, who brought their zoo menagerie to the gardens in September 1969. 

Since 1969, the property had been leased from the Fleischmann family estate, but in 2002, the family was interested in selling the 43 acres of zoo property and nearly 120 surrounding acres — the first time the land would be up for sale since Julius Fleischmann — longtime president of Fleischmann’s Yeast — acquired it in the 1950s. 

In 2004, a referendum was placed before county voters to let them decide the fate of the zoo, and roughly 73% agreed to tax themselves, approving a $40 million bond and authorizing the county to purchase the land beneath the zoo, in addition to surrounding preservation lands and the Gordon River Greenway. 

The purchase, through California-based Trust for Public Land and Florida Communities Trust, preserved the location while maintaining it as an independently operated nonprofit. Under the trust, part of the land is subject to conservation, recreational and public-use requirements. Property records show Fleischmann family members sold 45 acres in two transactions in December 2005 for $17,006,700 and $50,493,400. 

Rather than operating the zoo, the county purchased the land and placed the zoo portion under a long-term lease agreement with the nonprofit Naples Zoo board. As part of the agreement, the zoo offers “Collier Free Saturdays,” free admission for county residents on the first Saturday of each month, as well as half-price annual family memberships. 

The zoo originally paid $250,000 yearly under the lease, but after becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, zoo officials pointed out no other nonprofit paid such high county lease fees and renegotiated it to $1 yearly in 2009. The term started in November 2009 and expires Nov. 10, 2039, unless terminated earlier under terms of the lease. 

Zoo officials seek assurance about property’s future 

Transportation Management Services Head Trinity Scott, who oversees real estate services, told commissioners the county could work toward a fee-simple acquisition with a long-term lease that could provide more reassurance. 

“They’re not looking at getting out of any of the requirements that are in the existing lease — the free day for the current Collier County residents — or any of those provisions within the lease,” Scott said. 

She noted the county recently went through this process with the county fair board, Collier Fair & Exposition Inc., which has a county lease and wants to own a property. 

“As a nonprofit entity, [they’re] having similar concerns about being able to go after certain grants or certain types of funding when they don’t own property or have that longer-term lease,” she said. 

Vice Chair Bill McDaniel Jr. asked what the chances were of reimbursing taxpayers if the county renegotiated it to a fee-simple lease. County Manager Amy Patterson said that’s one of the options county staff could bring back to commissioners for discussion and approval. 

Commissioner Burt Saunders said he’d prefer a long-term lease, as the county has with Golden Gate Golf Course and David Lawrence Centers. 

“We don’t know what’s going to happen 45, 50 years from now, but I think the county should maintain ownership going forward,” Saunders said. 

However, Commissioner Chris Hall questioned the benefits of a lease, pointing out it usually provides control. 

“Well, for a dollar a year on a lease, we are out of control,” Hall said. 

If the county allows it to operate under a fee-simple lease, he said, the county could retain stormwater, county easements and other elements “that are key and vital to us.” 

“There’s a revert clause that if it ever stops being a zoo, it comes back to the taxpayers,” he said, adding he’d like to repay taxpayers and didn’t care what the lease terms were. 

“They make $12 million a year gross in their ticket sales and in their operations,” Hall said of the zoo. “If we collected a small amount every year for principal only, just to get the taxpayers paid back, they get the fee simple, they get the ownership, they get the endowments, they get the things that they want. We just don’t give them the taxpayers’ money, but we get it back over 30, 40, 50 years.” 

The zoo features about 70 species, and its latest tax filing shows it earned $12.1 million in revenue, including ticket sales, $5.35 million in contributions and $653,660 in rental income. Expenses totaled $10.1 million. 

Mulvena says that since 2004, nearly 1 million county residents and families have visited the zoo on the zoo’s free Saturdays, representing a “payback” to the community of more than $20 million in free admissions. 

The zoo completed a 10-year, $30 million capital campaign and investment in major new exhibits and capital improvements that culminated with the opening of the zoo’s new entrance and visitor complex in 2024, he said, adding, “planning for another major capital campaign and 10-year investment in the zoo, as well as a campaign to establish a much-needed endowment for the zoo, began early last year and it is anticipated that the goal for the two campaigns combined will be in excess of $100 million.” 

He noted Collier Community Foundation estimates that countywide, there will be a transfer of wealth to the next generation totaling nearly $35 billion by 2032, and zoo officials will be asking donors to invest in the zoo. 

“Naples Zoo feels strongly that the success of its capital and endowment fundraising efforts will be tied to both the strength of the zoo’s case for giving and to this extraordinary transfer of wealth,” he added. 

Zoo and county officials met several times before the commission meeting, and zoo officials reached out to county officials immediately after the meeting to set a meeting schedule that will begin this month. Once options are firmed up, a date for discussion and approval will be set before the Board of County Commissioners.