LIBERTY TWP — A safari park planned for 143 acres on Route 258 near Slippery Rock and Grove City has begun construction work, and the owner says he hopes a “soft” opening with partial services will take place in early summer.

The park’s owner and operator, Adam Guiher, said that work has already begun on a 228-car parking lot, as well as the park’s planned entrance and gift shop.

“You basically start where people come in, build the parking lot and main entrance, and proceed from there,” Guiher said of construction plans.

The new park will be named Keystone Safari, Guiher said, adding that he hopes construction will make significant progress over the winter months.

“We do think that over the winter, if the weather cooperates, we’ll cover a good bit of ground,” Guiher said this week.

Environmental permitting from county, state and federal agencies had the project on hold for the past year-and-a-half, Guiher said, though he noted that the time was used to plan out details of the park — from building interiors to the types of fencing that will be used on the park’s animal enclosures. The park is expected to have about 40,000 feet of fencing, Guiher said, including specialty fencing for rhinoceros and giraffe exhibits.

Guiher, who has owned and operated Moraine Living Treasures Animal Park in Lawrence County for more than a decade, purchased the 143-acre property in 2015 with a plan to create something entirely different from Living Treasures.

Keystone Safari is expected to include exhibits focusing on larged hoofed animals, as well as species from the Americans and Eurasia. This summer Guiher said that the park was planning to include rhinos, zebras, giraffes and other readily-recognizable exotic animals, as well as rarer specimens like the Bongo Antelope from the eastern forests of Africa; the David Steer, a species that is native to China but extinct in the wild; and the Brazilian Tapir.

“I’m confident that what we’re putting together is going to be a world-class facility,” Guiher said.

By the time 2017’s expected soft opening comes, Guiher hopes to have dozens of acres within the park developed as part of an “adventure park” that features zip lines, ropes courses and as many as 45 games that cater to both children and adults. He said the vision for these areas of the park is to create a natural supplement to the park’s animal exhibits.

“None of them are designed to be extreme sports,” Guiher said. “It’s a natural atmosphere. You’re out in the woods (and) they’ll be some opportunities to see some of the animals out on the courses.”

Animals remain the main focus of the park and what Guiher believes will be the main attraction for visitors. The keystone of the park’s programming, a safari-style tour including about 40 species of animals, is expected to be open to the public by fall 2017, Guiher said.

Before then visitors will still have a chance to glimpse animals within the park, Guiher said. Among the buildings expected to be constructed first is the park’s reindeer exhibit, which will take the form of a large, walk-in barn housing the cloven-hoofed animals as well as other, smaller North American species.

Guiher said the park also currently is going through a permitting process for a Bald Eagle rehabilitation program it hopes to host. Guiher said birds in the program would be rescued animals brought in from across the country, and he expects the program to focus on animals that, for various reasons, can’t be re-released into the wild. Guiher said he hopes to have that program up and running by next summer.

“We’ve had experience with other species, but this would be the first chance to work with bald eagles,” he said.

There also are plans to breed and rear giraffes for an exhibit that will include elevated walkways and “public interaction opportunities” with the adult animals, Guiher said. Living Treasures is currently home to Blue Jeans, a female giraffe expecting her first calf sometime next summer, who might end up being one of Keystone Safari’s first animal tenants, Guiher said.

He said construction plans at the park also included a number of smaller exhibit areas on wooded parts of the property, where avian exhibits will be hosted, as well as a barnyard area for domesticated animals. That area is expected to be completed within the next week or so, Guiher said.