Vancouver's Stanley Park could be getting some new animal additions -- of the robotic, life-sized dinosaur variety.
The Vancouver Parks Board hopes to place between 25 and 30 robot dinosaurs in the prized 400-hectare green space, creating a Jurassic Park-like attraction it expects would draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.
"The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation invites proposals from experienced proponents for the provision of life size animatronic dinosaur and related educational exhibits at Stanley Park in Vancouver, B.C.," reads a (RFP) posted on the board's website.
The outdoor attraction, to be called "Dinosaur Experience," is intended to be a family-focused educational exhibit. Space would also be provided for an indoor display of skeletons, fossils and other dinosaur exhibits, according to the document.
The Parks Board would charge a separate admission for entrance to the exhibit, which it predicts would attract 300,000 to 400,000 people in the first year of a proposed three-year run.
Media and corporate sponsorship would be sought for the exhibit, which would be located near the popular Miniature Railway and Children's Farmyard area.
The proposal has triggered some controversy, amid concerns that it could make the area feel like an amusement park.
Spencer Herbert, parks commissioner and a member of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) municipal party minority, told The Globe and Mail he first learned about the idea from the media.
"[That's] why it boggles my mind so much," he told The Globe, speaking for himself and the other COPE member on the seven-member board.
"It could be a good proposal. It could be a bad one. But I think that when we're going forward as leaders, we should be talking to the community first."
The board came up with the idea after members spoke informally with Dinosaurs Unearthed, a Vancouver-based company that sets up dinosaur-related exhibits.
Parks Board staff then issued the RFP in order to obtain more concrete information about what such an exhibit would look like, Korina Houghton, vice-chairwoman of the board and a member of the majority Non-Partisan Association party told The Globe.
Houghton said she hasn't yet formed an opinion.
"If there's something feasible there, then we will have something to discuss," she said.
"We have to know, first of all, are these ideas going to fit into the context of Stanley Park physically. Does it fit in emotionally with Stanley Park, and ecologically. We don't have that kind of information yet."
If the proposal was "tacky" she wouldn't go for it, but if it had educational value and fit in with the park's surroundings, it could be worth considering, she said.
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 12.
The exhibit would be on display between May 1 and Oct. 31, for three years beginning in 2008.
