Riverbanks’ garden entry closed for up to year

Flood damage to the main entrance to the garden at Riverbanks Zoo may take up to a year to repair, officials say.

Lexington County officials have closed Botanical Parkway, forcing motorists to weave their way to the garden on the lower Saluda River by going through neighborhoods off Sunset Boulevard (U.S. 378) in West Columbia.

For now, it’s a minimal problem. But it will become “a big inconvenience” starting in spring when floral displays at the garden are popular, zoo president Satch Krantz said.

The parkway, nicknamed the zoo’s “back door,” was damaged in flash floods during record rain in the Midlands Oct. 4.

About 120,000 of the zoo’s 1 million annual visitors arrive through the garden, officials say. That total is expected to grow with the debut of a play area in the garden for children in March, Krantz said.

Zoo officials built the scenic, mile-long road in 2001 to divert traffic headed to the 70-acre garden from adjoining neighborhoods.

“We don’t want people on those residential streets,” Krantz said. “Those are not designed to handle that comfortably.”

Some homeowners are concerned traffic to and from the zoo will be dangerous on the narrow streets that have few sidewalks and are often busy with walkers, joggers, bicyclists and some of the 385 students at Saluda River Academy for the Arts.

“It’ll make you put on your radar, be more conscious while driving,” said Betty White, who has lived two blocks from the zoo for 13 years.

The twisting neighborhood streets can be confusing for motorists unfamiliar with the area, some residents say.

Preliminary estimates put repairing the hole in the middle of the mile-long road at up to $1 million, County Administrator Joe Mergo said. Building the road and a garden entry sign cost $3 million.

It’s a larger job than simply replacing drainage pipes and replacing pavement swept away.

Restoration of the 100-foot-long section of the road over Double Branch Creek that washed out requires improvements in drainage for storm runoff from neighborhoods and strengthening the road, county public works officials say.

Doing the repair right will take extra months and money, they say.

The project’s price tab is about 40 percent of money that county officials set aside yearly for road repairs.

Officials hope to pay for the repair through federal disaster aid coming for recovery from the floods.

White discovered the washout on the road that October morning when she saw water spouting like a geyser from a pipe turned skyward as she tried to go to work that morning.

“Water was spewing up as if it was Old Faithful,” she said.

Zoo officials are scrambling to develop a new route into the garden that won’t upset homeowners, after learning that the parkway is likely to be closed much longer than they expected.

“We’ll try to find the most effective and efficient way to get traffic in and out,” Krantz said.

For now, traffic is light enough that neighborhood streets aren’t overburdened, West Columbia Mayor Bobby Horton said.

“It’ll become much more a concern in a few months,” he said.

Some homeowners near the zoo wonder why it will take so long.

“I thought with the zoo here, it would have gotten higher priority,” Edna Wilcenski said. “And it’s such a pretty drive.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2015 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Riverbanks’ garden entry closed for up to year."