from “le détroit” · the strait
Belle Isle's koi are living in the aquarium basement while a $10 million HVAC overhaul gets underway, the first major systems work on the 1904 building in 75 years.
Belle Isle's koi have moved into the aquarium basement, displaced for the season by a $10 million HVAC overhaul. It is the first major systems update to the building in 75 years, paid for with federal American Rescue Plan Act money.
Aquarium curator Paul Shuert and Belle Isle Conservancy president and CEO Meagan Elliot say the koi will return to their outdoor pond before the end of 2026, possibly with a celebration in the spirit of the old Koi Festival. The fish are spending the summer in basement tanks while the work runs.
The koi have been through worse. They first lived at Belle Isle's now-demolished zoo, and they rode out the aquarium's seven-year closure on the island. "These are beloved assets, but they are over 120 years old," Elliot told WDET, speaking of the aquarium's living and built history.
The renovation is not closing the aquarium. The building stays open to the public, Thursday through Sunday, with free admission. The project covers the heating and cooling systems, site drainage, and accessibility upgrades, with most of the construction happening below the public galleries.
The Belle Isle Aquarium, at 3 Inselruhe Ave., is the oldest continually operating public aquarium in North America. Designed by George D. Mason and Albert Kahn, it opened on August 18, 1904. The city closed it on April 3, 2005 to save roughly $530,000 a year. Volunteers kept the 1904 building going through the shutdown, and the aquarium reopened on August 18, 2012, exactly 108 years after its first day. The Belle Isle Conservancy, a nonprofit partner to the state park, has run it ever since.
The single grand gallery covers about 10,000 square feet under an arched ceiling tiled in green glass, built to make visitors feel they have gone underwater. For a building that keeps living fish, climate control is not a luxury, and the systems doing that work had not been substantially touched since the aquarium ran under city management.
Belle Isle is a 982-acre island park in the Detroit River, managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and reached by the MacArthur Bridge off East Grand Boulevard.
The koi are in the basement. They have been through worse.
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