The building is indeed one and the same - it's just been modernised several times over the years, so is pretty unrecognisable. The brick frontage on the southern facade seems to date from its rebuild as an SMT garage around 1957.
It was a huge complex all under one roof - the cinema was only part of it.
From Bruce Peter's "100 Years of Glasgow's Amazing Cinemas":
"Among these early developments, the Zoo Electric Theatre, was unique. The showman E.H. Bostock ran a huge entertainment complex in New City Road which included an indoor zoo, a circus and a display of grotesques. Writing in 1937 [Bruce alters this to 1927 in a subsequent book], Bostock claimed to have been one of the first film exhibitors in Glasgow:
"I ran films as a sideshow from July 1897 onwards and, that winter, I showed them in the circus as part of my programme. At Christmas 1898, I presented a beautiful picture, Cinderella, hand coloured in Paris, and in August 1901, I exhibited the first fight film in the city, Fitzsimmons v Jeffries, which was a very big success."
But it was not until January 1911 that he fitted a permanent cinema into his complex. The Zoo Electric only operated until that September, when the whole place was closed for redevelopment, but it was back in business in December as the Joytown Grand Electric Theatre. Bostock claimed that his amusement centre was "the cheapest attraction in the civilised world" but, though the film shows were inexpensive, they were not enduring, and the cinema's short career ended in 1918"
The Theatres Trust Guide to British Theatres writes (appears to have been Bruce who wrote this entry too):
"A vast warehouse-like iron-framed structure with a partially glazed roof of industrial proportions and originally containing a zoo, roller skating rink and hippodrome under one roof. The remarkable enterprise, a fully enclosed entertainment centre, was the brainchild of the circus magnate and showman, E.H. Bostock. The exterior was originally clad in brick with stone dressings with twin towers and onion domes at the entrances. Today, it is entirely re-clad in corrugated metal and the once-ornate interior has long since been removed, so that only the frames remain."
In his most recent book, Scotland's Cinemas, Bruce notes that the architect was Bertie Crewe and some of the finance came from Thomas Barrasford - the pair would later respectively design and finance the Pavilion in Renfield Street.
Here's the entry for the building in the Dictionary of Scottish Architects:
http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/bu ... ?id=216326The original complex appears to have opened in May 1897.
If you look round the back of the building, facing the M8 flyover, you can see what appear to be large arches in the facade, which hint at some slightly more exotic use in the past.
). I think it is more likely to have been built on the site of the old Zoo. 
