Designed by New York’s Weiss/Manfredi Architects, the new Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center and Entrance serves as a place of orientation, education, and discovery. It’s a new milestone in the Garden’s history as its first Green building, and a lasting exhibit for ecologically sound design. The Visitor Center is registered with the USGBC with a goal of LEED Gold certification.

New plantings and a broad, gracious entry plaza welcome visitors, replacing the Garden’s current, undersized parking lot entrance. Visitors are greeted by an inspiring new structure, designed as an extension of the Garden’s existing landscape. Nested into the existing berm at the north end of Cherry Esplanade, the Visitor Center offers a series of “unfolding” vistas of the Garden through a glass wall panorama that extends from the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden and allows visitors to exit onto Cherry Esplanade. It includes two pavilions joined by indoor and outdoor spaces and overhung by a green roof.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center houses an exquisite new garden store, visible from within the Garden and with new street-side connections to Washington Avenue, a much-needed orientation room for tours and classes, a visitor-information desk, a dramatic new event space, a refreshment bar, and restrooms. The new event space, garden store, group-tour facilities, and centralized membership and ticketing services will boost revenue.