Missouri Botanical Garden getting new $92 million center

ST. LOUIS -- A new $92 million visitor center is planned at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

Officials with the garden announced the project Monday. Groundbreaking is scheduled for January and the center, which will be known as the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center, is scheduled to open in the spring of 2022.

It replaces the current Ridgway Visitor Center that was built in 1982 and was meant to accommodate 250,000 annual visitors. The garden typically gets about 1 million visitors annually.

The garden will remain open during construction. Its president, Peter Wyse Jackson, said the project will allow the garden "to advance our role as a global leader in plant science, and as an important cultural institution for the region and the nation."