Courtesy / Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture & The Environment
Dave Herring
March 10, 2022
$4M research facility breaks ground at Freeport agricultural education center
Courtesy / Opal Architects
Seen here is a rendering of the Smith Center for Education and Research now under construction.
By Staff
Construction has begun on a new $4 million facility at Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment in Freeport.
The project to build the Smith Center for Education and Research received a $2.5 million community facilities direct loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program. Bath Savings Bank has provided construction financing.
“The Smith Center for Education and Research will enable us to convene people of all ages and backgrounds, year-round, to take part in our work of transforming our relationship with food and farming for a healthier planet,” said Dave Herring, Wolfe’s Neck Center’s executive director, in a news release.
The center’s mission will be to demonstrate “climate-smart” agricultural education and to advance agriculture as a natural climate solution.
Construction began in early February, and is slated to continue through winter 2023. The 7,500-square-foot center will house Wolfe’s Neck’s growing suite of educational programs and research initiatives, as well as community events and conferences.
With meeting spaces, classrooms and a commercial teaching kitchen, the center is expected to increase attendance capacity. The center is designed to be fossil fuel-free and built to Passive House standards.
Zachau Construction in Freeport is construction manager.
Wolfe’s Neck Center is a nonprofit research and education center focused on regenerative agriculture, and is situated on over 600 acres of conserved coastal landscape in Freeport.
The Smith Center is named after LMC and Eleanor Houston Smith, summer residents from Philadelphia, who founded Wolfe's Neck Farm in the 1960s. They later created Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation to conserve their property.
The farm's name was recently changed to Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment.
In 2019, Wolfe’s Neck completed a new facility to house a first-of-its-kind training program for new and transitioning organic dairy farmers. In 2020, Wolfe’s Neck Center launched OpenTEAM, the first open-source technology ecosystem in the world to address soil health and mitigate climate change.
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