NORFOLK, Va. — Amid the serenity of the Norfolk Botanical Garden, the familiar sound of construction can be heard.
Four biomes are being built along with a rooftop sky walk to give visitors a bird's eye view of them. A revamped parking lot is also underway to make visitors feel like they’re in the garden as soon as they pull up.
The project is called The Garden of Tomorrow. It's the garden's largest project in 85 years and is expected to cost around $40 million.
Becky and Steve Stephens are frequent visitors of the garden and are very excited to see the work.
“It’s bringing so much more to the community and so our grandson can also enjoy it as well as us," Becky said.
The biomes will house a variety of endangered desert and tropical plants to highlight their importance.
“The conservation of the plants for us is absolutely amazing," said Steve. "This entire location, there’s so many things here you simply can’t see anywhere else."
The garden’s President and CEO, Peter Schmidt, said the garden will serve as a sort of Noah’s Ark for the plants.
“We don’t know if, in one of those plants, we don’t have a cure for cancer or other ailments, so we understand the value of that and the importance of that," Schmidt said.
The biomes will also be used to help the garden partner with the community.
“We’re big with collaboration and working with our community partners, whether that be the colleges or even some of the schools, some of the public schools," Schmidt explained. "We understand the value we can play in supporting their education, so absolutely that will be part of it and where we can work with other organizations we want to do that."
As of Oct. 2, about 85% of the money for the project had been raised by private donations, Schmidt said, and the garden was continuing to ask for donations and support.
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