The Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury plans to break ground this fall on a new 2,800-square-foot learning center and laboratory. The project will be funded in part with a $200,000 Massachusetts Cultural Commission (MCC) grant received earlier this year, and a grant of $500,000 from the Cedar Tree Foundation, along with smaller donations.
The facility is expected to be completed by fall 2016 at a cost of nearly $1 million, Tim Boland, Polly Hill executive director, told The Times.
The Polly Hill Arboretum is a nonprofit preserve set on 70 acres off State Road. Named after its founder, Polly Hill, the nearly 60-year-old facility, home to more than 2,000 plant and arboreal species, has been open to the public since 1998.
“This grant, coupled with a $500,000 matching grant from the Cedar Tree Foundation and donations from members and Island groups, has provided us with $940,000 in available funds to undertake the project,” Mr. Boland said, noting that fundraising efforts will continue through the summer for furnishings and furniture for the center.
The Cedar Tree Foundation (CTF) is a Boston-based small family fund created by the late pediatrician and entrepreneur Dr. David H. Smith, a seasonal West Tisbury resident whose interest in botany also led him to reshape Polly Hill as a nonprofit in 1988.
“Dr. Smith believed in the power of individuals and organizations to make significant changes in our world, and we reflect that belief in our grantmaking,” CTF states on its website.
Polly Hill’s new Education Center and Botany Lab will be located near the Homestead administrative building, on a site now occupied by the original (and very creaky) structure at Polly Hill, which had served as both a residence and an administration building.
“All of our contractors are Island companies,” Mr. Boland said, noting that Tucker Hubbell and the Rising Sun Construction Co. in West Tisbury will be the lead contractor. Peter Rodegast of West Tisbury and Margaret Curtin of Vineyard Haven drafted the design.
“In scale and design, the building will be consistent with the other buildings on the campus, and we’ll use as much of the material from the old building as we can in the new one,” Mr. Boland said.
The building will not be LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) but will generally meet LEED criteria, including insulation and solar panels that are expected to generate 50 percent of the building’s energy needs, Mr. Boland said.
The Polly Hill Arboretum Education Center and Botany Lab, as the new center is named, will enhance three important pieces of the Polly Hill mission, Mr. Boland said.
“We will be able to offer our education programs on a year-round basis. We have been using a rehabbed barn, which is pleasant, but it’s open and uninsulated. Along about October, it can get uncomfortable,” he said.
The new meeting room will seat 30 people.
“We’re also planning to expand our reach. To date, we’ve been able to offer learning programs for kids up to sixth grade. The new, larger facility will allow us to offer programs to seventh grade right through high school,” he said, emphasizing that botanical training is critical today, particularly in light of ecological concerns planet-wide. College degrees conferred in botany sciences have slumped 50 percent since 1988, and advanced degrees are down 41 percent in that period, he said: “Many kids are choosing micro- and molecular-biology disciplines instead.”
Polly Hill staffers serve as trainers for the staffs of the Island’s multiple nature conservancy groups. “We serve as the go-to source for conservancy groups needing to identify plants and learn about their care and treatment,” he said.
Finally, the new building will provide much-needed lab space and critically needed storage space, particularly to provide a climate-controlled home for Polly Hill’s “herbarium” — a collection of 3,000 plant specimens which have been collected, arranged in a natural form, pressed to paper, dried, and inserted in folders.
“They are stored in various file cabinets now. Under proper conditions, specimens in this form can last up to 150 to 200 years,” Mr. Boland said.
He said that the Americans with Disabilities Act requirement for an elevator in a building like the center provided a planning opportunity. “We decided to expand the basement level to capacity in order to maximize our laboratory and storage space. We will have 12 storage units serving as a big repository for plant specimens, vascular plants, lichen, and for our first donated herbarium, Rose Treat’s seaweed herbarium,” he said. The late centenarian Rose Treat spent decades on the Island studying and collecting seaweed.
“We’re not just a beautiful place. There are lots of layers going on here. I think Polly would be pleased,” Mr. Boland said.
For more information, call 508-693-9426.