Three Lakes Park, Nature Center renovation projects progressing

By Lucy Jones, Special to the Citizen

Three Lakes Park and Nature Center in Northern Henrico is being renovated, with phase one of the project set to be completed in Summer 2025.

According to the director of Recreation and Parks in Henrico County, John Zannino, the renovation is actually split into two different projects – the park and the Nature Center.

The rehabilitation of the park began about a year and a half ago, and many of the trails have been updated, but work is still in progress. Woodland Construction last month was awarded the job of adding some new improvements, such as a new restroom facility, an outdoor classroom near "Lake Two," landscaping and renovating the entrance to the Nature Center.

The park project originally was part of the 2016 bond referendum, through which Henrico County voters approved funding for various government projects, including $87.1 million for parks.

About $2.3 million is going into Three Lakes Park from the bond referendum, as well as an additional $700,000 from the county and $300,000 from the Recreation and Parks department, for a total of $3.3 million, according to Zannino.

Meanwhile, the Nature Center has a completely different budget and renovation plans. The center has a budget of $1.3 million, which comes from a combination of funding sources. These include a $500,000 donation and capital initiative from former Fairfield District Supervisor Frank J. Thornton, as well as $800,000 from the Recreation and Parks department, according to Zannino.

While the park’s rehabilitation will allow visitors to enjoy Virginia’s wildlife and environment, the nature center’s renovation will be focused on educating the public about that environment through the past, present and future.

“I think that it’s going to be really cool to be able to do some of our nature programming outside, as opposed to just in the building,” Zannino said.

The nature center’s renovation will be broken down into two phases of construction, with the completion of the first designed to coincide with the completion of the park's renovation this summer and construction on the second to begin shortly beforehand.

The first phase will include the renovation of the entrance and will be focused on the past and present of Virginia’s wildlife and ecosystem, according to the Henrico County Manager of Zoology Jim Weinpress. When all is complete, visitors will enter the building and be greeted by replicas of the skeletons and skulls of Virginia’s prehistoric animals, such as wooly mammoths, mastodons and saber-toothed tigers.

Transitioning into the present, visitors will see displays of life-size sharks hanging from the ceiling and a display of the American eel.

“When people come in here, we really want to have an all around experience. So when you look up, you see something. Look forward, left and right, there’s always something to see,” Weinpress said.

The Nature Center still will have its famous rock wall display, just updated to comply with current animal welfare standards.

“This wall won’t be as jam packed with living animals, but each living animal you see is going to have a really beautiful habitat,” Weinpress said.

The Nature Center's renovation is focused on creating safe and suitable habitats for the live animals that will be on display. The goal, according to Weinpress, is not only to create these habitats but also use them to educate visitors about what these animals need in order to be properly cared for.

“Three Lakes houses a variety of reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates, so I’m really excited about the new enclosures that we’re building for them,” said Senior Animal Care Specialist Sarah Fones. “We’re focusing on quality over quantity without animal collections, so we’re really trying to individualize animal welfare, which is their physical and their mental health, by giving them more choices in their environments.”

The rock wall will have both living and non-living exhibits for visitors to explore, and will be centered around Virginia-native animals, such as turtles, snakes, frogs, fish, and plants.

“The biggest thing that I want people to do is just to take a second to slow down and think about what’s in their environment,” Weinpress said. “We want people to really question and take a deeper look at the animals around them.”

The second phase of the project, which is still being designed, will focus on the future of Virginia wildlife. Exhibits added during that phase will showcase ways in which visitors can help with the conservation of the plants and animals that live around the area and how important it is to protect the environment.