lab Newsletter

$30K Turns the Galleria Green

Visitors to the Galleria At Erieview will find quite a different retail scene in the next couple of months, as the latest Civic Innovation Lab champions re-envision the building.

Tomatoes and flowers, for instance, will be a new addition to the few retail shops and art galleries. 

Vicky Poole, director of marketing and events for the Galleria, and Jack Hamilton, a gallery owner there, are the recent recipients of a $30,000 Lab grant to go toward Gardens Under Glass, their attempt to create an urban farm in the downtown shopping mall.

Using a greenhouse system that depends on water instead of soil to grow the crops, the fruits, vegetables, herbs, peppers and flowers can be produced in this year-round controlled urban farm.

Poole's and Hamilton's hope is that Gardens Under Glass will be a sustainable urban "Eco Village" that will serve as a center for agricultural production, environmental education, and green retail opportunities.

Check out the recent PD article on Gardens Under Glass:

"Millions have passed through the Galleria at Erieview, sun glinting on its barrel-shaped glass roof.

But it took a nurseryman's granddaughter to look up and think: This place looks like a giant greenhouse."

 

Now Vicky Poole, the Galleria's marketing and events director, who worked on her grandpa's farm as a child, expects that by late spring or early summer, there will be fresh tomatoes for sale among the shops and galleries at the downtown Cleveland mall."  

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