Green Learning Station to showcase Cincinnati in green movement

The Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati is planning a green roof and sustainable landscape demonstration project at the site of a former gas station at the corner of Reading Road and Oak Street in Avondale.

Vickie Ciotti of the Civic Garden Center says that they’ll begin developing the property, which they acquired in 1987 and have been using for storage and parking space, once they raise an additional $1 million in funding.

"We need someone with vision to come forward and help fund the remainder of this project -- to make it happen, and make it happen while there's still a great deal of excitement around this green movement," she says.

With its hundreds of computer chips buried throughout the station that can be tracked 24/7 through a special website, the Green Learning Station will be a learning tool for students in middle school, high school, and college.

The overriding goal is to educate people and to see their behaviors change over time.

"Beyond students, we expect to attract and educate those in the building and development trades -- to see first-hand what clients are asking for in their own homes and businesses, architects, homeowners -- who will see very practical steps they can take like adding a rain barrel, installing a rain garden in a wet area of their lawn, replacing a driveway with permeable pavement, public officials, and others," she says. 

Ciotti says that the Civic Garden Center and its project architects aren't aware of anything else like it anywhere.

"I saw recently in the Times that there's a sustainability center being built somewhere in New York -- sounds like they have similar objectives, but I don't think they have the monitoring capability ours will have," she says.

Ciotti hopes that the project can make Cincinnati a leader in the green movement.

"This project can showcase Cincinnati as a leader in the environmental movement," she says.  "Along with all of the improvements and excitement downtown, we could help to make the City a real destination."

Writer: Kevin LeMaster
Source: Vickie Ciotti, Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati