By Eve Wackett

The Great Lakes Center for Environmental Research and Education at Buffalo State College will begin construction of an Outdoor Teaching Pavilion. The teaching pavilion, scheduled for completion next summer, will be located on the Black Rock Canal at the shoreline of the Great Lakes Center Aquatic Field Station.

Gordon Fraser, Ph.D., director of the Great Lakes Center, said Assemblyman Dick Smith (Hamburg D/C/I/WF) secured $100,000 in funding to begin the project.

"The external community teaching pavilion at the Great Lakes Center Waterfront Campus of Buffalo State College will work to provide those academics and professionals with a tremendous tool to continue their research in a number of areas, ranging from water quality to aquatic ecology, and help build upon existing programs and their positive results that have already been brought about, which in the long run - again - will benefit all of Western New York," said Smith.

A press conference announcing the funds took place Oct. 29. The teaching pavilion is the beginning of a larger plan to create a waterfront campus that will be accessible to the community as well as the college.
See the BSC press release at:
http://www.buffalostate.edu/news/
index.asp?sub=pressrelease&prid=296

BSC also asked for $12 million, part of a $31 million overall request, in federal funds to construct the Waterfront Campus. BSC, the University at Buffalo and Brockport State College and others have formed a consortium and plan to create the Great Lakes Institute collaborating with U.S. and Canadian governments for research and protection of the lakes.

Plans for the campus (See: link for building costs and funding list) include:

• Community Maritime Center
• Seawall/public docks
• Ecolab Teaching Center – a K-12 teaching facility focused on the aquatic environment.
• Wetland Demonstration Center – ½ acre wetland pond with access points.
• Erie County Environmental Educational Institute (ECEEI)
• Yahara Boat House- An original boathouse design by Frank Lloyd Wright to be built by the West Side Rowing Club on BSC property.
• Boat-building facility
• Historic Boat Museum – a collection of historic watercraft native to the Great Lakes.
• Renovations to the existing field station will enhance its operational capacity and service-oriented programs.

“The funds have been appropriated and given to the Frank Lloyd Wright organization,” said Charlene Ritter Lester, county director of arts, culture and tourism.

Work on the boathouse, expected to cost $4.2 million, will begin by the end of 2003, with opening targeted for late 2004. (Buffalo News, LAND DEAL OPENS WAY FOR WRIGHT BOATHOUSE, Nov 1, 2002)