The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is about to break ground on a new, transparent, glass-walled structure — but it’s not a new greenhouse, it’s a spiffy new Washington Avenue entrance.
The visitor’s center, which will open in 2011, will include a new gift shop, snack bar, orientation room for tours, an oval shaped room for special events, and, of course, panoramic views of the garden.
“We’re enhancing the visitor experience,” said Frank Montez, vice president of facilities, planning and construction. “The services we provided will be given even more prominence, larger space and more resources.”
The 22,000-square-foot building will be constructed using recycled materials and will feature a green roof, making it the garden’s first environmentally friendly building.
The living roof is an example of how the visitor’s center is “combining exceptional beauty with a level of environmentally sustainable measures that assure this is a model of how to build in the 21st century,” said Frederick Bland, board chairman
“The new visitor center will physically embody our institutional commitment to conservation,” added Scot Medbury, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The new building is just one of several changes coming to the garden in celebration of its centennial.
There will also be new space devoted to an herb garden, a woodland garden, and a water garden in time for the year-long birthday celebration.
