The Naples Zoo's Free Saturday Is the Rent on a $1 Lease

Why does a zoo that brings in about $12 million a year let every Collier County resident in free on the first Saturday of each month? That free day is part of what it pays for its land.

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens sits on 52.6 acres at 1590 Goodlette-Frank Road North, and Collier County owns those acres. The zoo leases them for $1 a year. In return, the lease requires "Collier Free Saturdays" and half-price annual family memberships for county residents, as Gulfshore Business reported. On Aug. 25, 2026, county commissioners agreed to have staff and zoo officials look at lease options. The next free Saturday, Dec. 5, falls in the middle of those talks.

A garden, a yeast fortune and a 2004 vote

The land was a garden long before it held a zoo. Botanist Henry Nehrling bought it in 1919 to protect his plant collection from another Central Florida freeze, back when this part of Naples was being sold off as farm plots. Col. Lawrence and Nancy Jane Tetzlaff, the Midwest zoo operators known as Jungle Larry and Safari Jane, brought their animals to the gardens in September 1969.

For decades the zoo leased the ground from the family of Julius Fleischmann, the longtime president of Fleischmann's Yeast. In 2002 the family moved to sell the 43 zoo acres and nearly 120 acres around them. In 2004, roughly 73% of county voters agreed to tax themselves for a $40 million bond. The bond bought the land under the zoo, the preserve land around it and the Gordon River Greenway.

The county chose not to run the zoo. It kept the land and leased the zoo portion to the nonprofit Naples Zoo board. The rent started at $250,000 a year. After the zoo became a 501(c)(3), it argued that no other nonprofit paid county lease fees that high, and the rent was renegotiated to $1 in 2009. That term began in November 2009 and expires Nov. 10, 2039.

So Central Naples residents bought this land with their own tax dollars. Free admission one Saturday a month is part of what they get back.

What residents get for that $1

Naples Zoo President and CEO Jack Mulvena has put a number on it. Since 2004, nearly 1 million county residents and family members have come in on free Saturdays, which he calls a "payback" to the community worth more than $20 million in free admission.

The rest of the value shows up in the price lists. Online general admission is $26.95 for adults, $25.95 for seniors and $17.95 for children ages 3 to 12. Children 2 and under get in free. A free Saturday saves a family of two adults and two children $89.80 compared with a regular day.

The membership discount is even easier to see. On the zoo's membership page, a family/grandparent membership costs $179 for Florida residents and $358 for everyone else. The resident rate is exactly half. An individual membership is $99.

Both perks come from the lease. That's why the lease talks matter even to people who never think about who owns the land under the flamingos.

Why the zoo asked to reopen it

The zoo isn't short on money today. Its latest tax filing, as reported by Gulfshore Business, shows $12.1 million in revenue, including $5.35 million in contributions and $653,660 in rental income, against $10.1 million in expenses. Its concern is the future. The zoo finished a 10-year, $30 million capital campaign when its new entrance and visitor complex opened in 2024. Now it is planning a new 10-year capital campaign plus an endowment, and Mulvena expects the two together to top $100 million.

The trouble with an endowment is that it has to last for decades, and the lease ends in 2039. "That long-term future extends decades beyond 2039, and so we need to act today to begin to secure that future," Mulvena told Gulfshore Business. Commission Chair Dan Kowal, whose district includes the zoo, explained it from the donor's side:

"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."

The Aug. 25 agenda item directed the county manager to work with zoo leadership on three possible paths. The first is a lease amendment that extends the term and revises the termination provisions. The second is a fee-simple conveyance, meaning outright ownership, "subject to appropriate County protections." The third is whatever other direction the board gives.

Where commissioners stand

The free day was raised directly at the meeting. Trinity Scott, who oversees the county's real estate services, told commissioners the zoo is "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." She noted the county had recently gone through a similar process with Collier Fair & Exposition Inc., a nonprofit that also leases county land and wanted to own it.

The commissioners split on how much control the county should keep:

• Burt Saunders said he prefers a long-term lease, like the ones the county has with Golden Gate Golf Course and David Lawrence Centers, and that the county should keep ownership.
• Chris Hall pointed out that a $1 lease gives the county little control. He favored a fee-simple transfer that keeps stormwater and other county easements, includes a clause returning the land to taxpayers if it ever stops being a zoo, and has the zoo repay the taxpayers' principal over 30 to 50 years.
• Bill McDaniel Jr., the vice chair, asked whether taxpayers could be reimbursed. County Manager Amy Patterson said staff could bring that back as an option.

The positions commissioners laid out differ on whether the county keeps owning the land, gets repaid for buying it or both. According to staff, the zoo's request leaves the free day for county residents in place. Zoo and county officials set a schedule of meetings after the August vote. Once the options are firm, they will go back to the Board of County Commissioners for discussion and approval on a date that hasn't been set yet.

What a free Saturday covers this winter

The zoo you'd walk into on Dec. 5 has changed a lot over the past 18 months, mostly through new animals rather than new buildings. The zoo has about 70 species, according to Gulfshore Business.

The South American Trail got two San Diego Zoo transfers in May 2025, both placed under AZA Species Survival Plan breeding recommendations: Izel the capybara and Manu the toco toucan. Manu has since become a parent. He and his mate Macy raised a chick named Mango, hatched April 6, and two more toco toucans, Cassava and Guava, hatched at the zoo later in 2026.

In July 2025, white-cheeked gibbons Millie and Kapok, a mother and son from Zoo Miami, moved into the orangutan habitat after renovations made room for both species. You can see Kapok sharing space with Riplee, one of the orangutans.

Seven American flamingos, two males and five females from Fort Worth Zoo, arrived in November 2025 and brought the flock to 19 birds. That puts it closer to the size the zoo wants for a future breeding flock. And in January 2026 the zoo introduced Xander, a 13-year-old giant anteater from Caldwell Zoo. The zoo connects his arrival to its long-running support for giant anteater conservation in Brazil.

The zoo calendar from now to February

Regular hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with last admission at 3:30 p.m. The first change to that comes tomorrow.

Winter Camp WILD costs $55 a day for members and $75 for nonmembers. That's a $20-a-day member discount on top of the lower resident membership price. ZOObilee is a fundraiser with food, drinks, music, animal encounters and an auction. The gala and ZOObilee are where the donor side of the zoo meets in person, and those donors are the people the coming campaign will be asking for gifts large enough to need land certainty.

The county's agenda portal is where the lease options will show up once staff brings them back to the board.

Brian Giacomello keeps track of the county land deals behind Central Naples landmarks like the zoo and the Gordon River Greenway. If you want to know how the zoo lease talks touch the blocks around Goodlette-Frank Road, reach out to Brian. Start Your Success Story.