The Honolulu Zoo — which many visitors pass without even noticing — will get a new entrance as part of a proposed multimillion-dollar renovation of Kapi'olani Park.

The planned changes, now open to public comment, call for $13.5 million in improvements to the park that include placing utility lines underground, widening walkways, upgrading Paki Avenue and adding off-street bicycle/moped parking.

The new zoo entrance will be more visible and should help tourists find the attraction. One of the most common questions visitors ask at a kiosk within several hundred feet of the zoo entrance is: "Where is the zoo?"

A new entrance that attracts more visitors could make the zoo less dependent on tax dollars that are stretched thinner each year, said City Enterprise Services Director Sidney A. Quintal.

The zoo draws about 750,000 visitors per year.

An earlier plan to demolish the existing Honolulu Zoo entrance has been scrapped, in response to opposition from members of the community.

The old entrance will be used as a visitor center and for restrooms. The low-rise structure, built in 1962, was the vision of the late noted architect Alfred Preis, who also designed the Arizona Memorial.

"The Alfred Preis building will be saved, thanks to our intervention," said Nancy Bannick, a member of the nonprofit Kapi'olani Park Preservation Society. "We wanted it to stay as an entrance but they won't do that."

Some details of the plans were published in a 53-page draft environmental assessment, while others are still being hammered out.

Jack Gillmar, secretary of the Kapi'olani Park Preservation Society, said the society vehemently opposed an earlier plan to place a zoo shop fronted by a wall of glass on the parking lot side of the zoo that bumped way out into the zoo's lawn.

"We didn't want the commercial zoo shop to be visible from outside of the park," Gillmar said. "We're very much against commercialization of the park."

Kapi'olani Park is governed by a trust that was established in 1896 when the public park was created.

The preservation society has argued that the terms of the trust bar most forms of commercial activities. A 1988 state Supreme Court ruling supported that claim by barring the city from leasing space next to the zoo for a Burger King restaurant.

The cost for implementing the recommended master plan is estimated at $13.5 million — $2.3 million for the entrance has been set aside.

The plan also calls for eliminating a softball field near Dillingham Fountain.

Paki Avenue will be upgraded and parking will be limited to within marked stalls.

Bannick said she was disappointed that the city had added a parking lot along Paki Avenue years ago then allowed continued street parking. "It's bad the way it is," she said. "There are some dangerous corners there."

She said the new lot was specifically designed to replace the street parking. "They have the lot and they still don't enforce the no-parking bans" along Paki Avenue, where cars parking on tree roots damage the trees.

Councilman Charles Djou, whose district includes Waikiki, said the council is open to the proposed changes. "I think it's a positive plan," he said.

Djou said he believes the council will review the latest plan in a meeting at the end of this month. Several permits are required for the work to be completed.

He said he understands the changes proposed in parking along Paki Avenue are designed to enhance pedestrian safety and protect the tree roots from damage caused by cars parking on them.

But Djou said losing parking spaces is a concern.

"It's such a heavily used park that I hate to see the loss of parking," he said.

Gillmar said the spirit of the park is best preserved with less paving and more open space available to a variety of people.

"We're trying to keep the park a park," he said.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.