Naples botanical gardens breaks ground on $15.5M project

NAPLES — Construction is underway for a new growing facility at Naples Botanical Garden, a $15.5 million project.

The Evenstad Horticulture Campus will enhance the facility’s nature-based environmental solutions, expand its collections of tropical and subtropical plants, and enhance its 170 acres of cultivated gardens and native habitat, according to a statement. A groundbreaking was held March 21.

The approximately 66,000-square-foot Evenstad Horticulture Campus will consist of specialized greenhouses, nurseries and laboratories. It also will house the garden’s seed bank, which currently stores more than 200,000 seeds from Southwest Florida and the Caribbean for restoration projects and long-term genetic preservation, the release states.

The facility is named in honor of Grace Evenstad and her late husband, Ken, longtime garden benefactors and lead donors to this project. Grace Evenstad is a member of the Naples Botanical Garden board.

The new center propels the 12-year-old botanical garden — one of the nation’s youngest — into its next phase, as a regional resource for plant science, conservation and education, officials say. In addition to private donations, the project’s funders include the Florida Legislature.

“The Evenstad Horticulture Campus is key to the garden’s evolution and our ability to contribute to our community’s environmental health,” President and CEO Donna McGinnis says in the release. “At the same time, it will allow us to refine and expand our display gardens, honoring our legacy as a cultural resource and place of respite for residents and visitors.”

Construction is expected to last one year. P.K. Studios Inc. is the architect and Manhattan Construction is the general contractor. Naples Botanical Garden draws some 250,000 people a year.