Walk the lake loop this September and something is missing before you can name it. The bridge over the lion enclosure, the one where visitors have leaned on the rail since the 1980s to look down at Como's big cats, has nothing to look down at. No pacing shape in the grass. No low sound carrying across the water on a quiet morning. If you've lived near Como Park long enough to notice these things without thinking about them, you've probably noticed this one.
The instinct is to read an empty exhibit as neglect. At Como, right now, it means close to the opposite.
The Habitat Emptied Out Because the Money Finally Arrived
Como's lioness, Maji, is leaving the zoo this year. So is the wolf pack. Neither departure is about budget cuts or declining care. Both are happening because construction is finally about to start on a renovation the zoo has been asking Minnesota lawmakers to fund since 2022.
That first ask was for $22 million to redo the entire Big Cat Habitat in one pass. The legislature didn't bite. So Como's team went back with a phased version, and in May 2026 the Minnesota Senate passed a bonding package that included $9.3 million for Phase One of what's now called the Big Cats & African Animals project. State Senator Clare Oumou Verbeten, who represents Saint Paul, carried the funding request and has described the goal as giving Como's lions, tigers, cougars, snow leopards and wolves modern welfare standards and the kind of eye-level "nose-to-nose" viewing that replaces the current setup, where guests look down at animals from an elevated walkway.
That elevated walkway is part of the problem the money is meant to fix. Director Erica Prosser has said the new design will let visitors stand level with the animals instead of above them, a shift that also touches on something easy to miss from outside the fence: the current bridge and viewing areas have accessibility limitations for anyone using a wheelchair, stroller, or mobility device. The zoo's own nonprofit partner, Como Friends, has already put $3 million toward the design and planning work that got the project this far.
None of that explains why the animals had to leave before a shovel goes in the ground. That part is simpler and sadder. Como's remaining lion, Mumford, died earlier this year. With him gone, keeping Maji at Como through years of construction noise and disrupted space wasn't considered good for her, so she's relocating to live with another pride at a different zoo. The wolf pack was moved to another accredited facility this summer for the same reason: you can't build around animals that need a stable, quiet habitat.
So the empty enclosure you're walking past isn't Como losing interest in its big cats. It's Como finally being able to afford to take better care of them, and paying the short-term cost of an empty exhibit to get there.
A Flower Show Built as a Farewell
If you want to see Como's own read on this moment, look at what's blooming in the conservatory this month. The Fall Flower Show, opening September 18, 2026, takes its color palette directly from Mumford and Maji. It's the kind of detail that only makes sense once you know the backstory: the horticulture team built a farewell into a seasonal flower show instead of just letting the animals disappear quietly.
There's a second closure tucked into that same timeline that matters if you visit the conservatory regularly. The historic Sunken Garden, one of the most photographed rooms at Como, is set to close for renovations right after this flower show wraps, so the space can finally be made fully accessible for strollers, wheelchairs, and other mobility needs. Como's horticulturists and an event company are already planning a poinsettia display for the Visitor Center porch to cover the gap while the room is under construction. If you've been meaning to get one more look at the Sunken Garden in its current form, this fall's flower show is the window, not next spring's.
The Part of the Park That Already Got Quietly Better
Here's where the story stops being only about what's leaving. While the zoo side of Como has been losing animals ahead of construction, the trail side has been gaining something most residents haven't clocked yet.
For years, anyone who's walked or biked around Como Lake has watched informal shortcuts form in the grass, the kind of worn dirt paths that show up wherever people decide the official route is slightly wrong. This spring and summer, Saint Paul Parks and Recreation, working with the Capitol Region Watershed District, built nine new formal paths at specific points around the park to replace those desire paths with something designed on purpose. Construction fencing around that work came down by August 3, 2026. If you haven't walked the full loop since midsummer, there are stretches that look different now, not because anything scenic changed, but because the ground under your feet finally matches where people were already walking.
It's a small thing next to a $9.3 million animal habitat, but it's the same underlying story: Como isn't static this year. Pieces of it are being rebuilt in ways that show up as absence first, before they show up as improvement.
What Changes for Como Park in the Coming Months
If you live near the park or pass through it on a regular loop, here's what's actually different heading into fall and winter, separate from anything you'd read on a generic parks page:
- The lion bridge will stay empty through Phase One construction, with no confirmed date yet for new animals to arrive in the redesigned habitat.
- The wolf exhibit is vacant for the same reason, ahead of the same construction footprint.
- The Fall Flower Show, running from September 18 through mid-November, is this year's last look at the Sunken Garden before it closes for its accessibility renovation.
- The lake loop's newly formalized paths are open now, following this spring's construction, so routes that once cut across grass are paved and marked.
None of this changes what Como Park is for the people who live around it. It's still the free zoo with sea lion shows and giraffe feedings, still the lake loop dog walkers do before work, still the conservatory that smells like a greenhouse in January. What's changing is which corners of it look different depending on when you show up this year, and knowing why keeps you from mistaking a construction pause for a decline.
Como Zoo has pointed out that only about one in five of its nearly 2 million annual visitors actually live in Saint Paul. The other four out of five treat it as a regional attraction. The people who live within walking distance of Como Lake get something different out of it: the chance to watch a beloved public space rebuild itself in real time, one closed exhibit and one finished trail at a time.
If you're weighing a move into Como Park or watching the neighborhood from just outside it, Karin Rice-Duncanson can walk you through what makes this pocket of Saint Paul worth that kind of attention, on the ground, block by block. Let's Connect.
