A modern, new aquarium was planned for Morro Bay. Will it ever happen?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a modern, two-story aquarium was planned for Morro Bay’s Embarcadero.
Local nonprofit Central Coast Aquarium, which runs a small aquarium in Avila Beach, presented the design to the Morro Bay City Council in 2020 — but the project was never built.
Fundraising efforts for the aquarium failed during the pandemic, halting the project.
Now the new aquarium is essentially dead in the water, with stakeholders saying it is not financially feasible.
“Without a significant infusion of cash from somewhere, it wasn’t going to make sense financially,” Morro Bay Community Development Director Scot Graham told The Tribune. “They weren’t going to be able to raise enough funds, so they decided not to move forward with it.”
Here’s a look at what the project was initially slated to include, and what ultimately killed it.
Two-story aquarium would feature sea otters, rays
The original Morro Bay Aquarium, labeled “America’s Worst Aquarium” by Vice News, closed in 2018 after animal rights activists criticized the sea lion enclosure.
Central Coast Aquarium, however, thought a seaside community like Morro Bay was the perfect place for an aquarium.
In 2018, the nonprofit proposed to build a new-and-improved facility in place of the old one at 595 Embarcadero.
On March 10, 2020, the nonprofit presented an aquarium design to the Morro Bay City Council.
The aquarium would have been two stories, with live aquatic exhibits on the first floor, including touch tanks for rays and a showcase for Morro Bay’s famous sea otters and oysters. The second floor would include a flexible classroom and meeting space and an office area.
“The new aquarium would emphasize the ecology of the estuary, including a feature on the eel grass and animals in the mudflats that are critical to the bay’s ecosystem,” a previous Tribune article said.
The City Council supported the project, and directed staff to schedule a meeting for July 2020 to discuss a lease agreement.
The project plans fell through, however, and Three Stacks and a Rock Brewing Company moved into the space.
Morro Bay aquarium not financially feasible
The Morro Bay City Council reviewed the aquarium design on March 10, 2020 — just eight days before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down San Luis Obispo County.
Even at that point, the project faced some big financial hurdles: In 2019, the Central Coast Aquarium commissioned a feasibility study to evaluate potential operating expenses and revenue for a Morro Bay aquarium.
The study predicted that 52,000 people would visit the aquarium per year, generating about $691,000 of revenue annually.
The aquarium would cost about $813,000 to operate, however, meaning there would be a $122,000 annual funding gap, according to the study.
Central Coast Aquarium planned to launch a fundraising effort later in 2020, but the pandemic likely made it difficult to raise the money, Graham told The Tribune.
Meanwhile, the city worked with Central Coast Aquarium to ensure their designs aligned with waterfront policies, including building height and setback requirements, but the nonprofit never applied to the city for building permits, according to Graham.
“We thought it was going to be a cool project,” Graham said. “It all kind of aligned with the things the city was interested in, kind of the visitor-serving nature of stuff that we have down by the waterfront, so it all made sense from that standpoint. It just has to make financial sense.”
The city hasn’t received an application to build an aquarium since then, Graham said.
When reached for comment, Central Coast Aquarium Executive Director Christy Kasarjian said in an email that the project “was not deemed viable.”
“That is the extent of my knowledge on the project,” she wrote, noting that she is new to the nonprofit.
This story was originally published November 24, 2023 at 8:00 AM.
