Davey breaks ground on S.E.E.D. Campus

Members of Davey Tree’s leadership team and project partners from The Ruhlin Company and SmithGroup break ground at Davey Tree’s new S.E.E.D. (Science, Employee Education & Development) Campus on Nov.30, 2022.

The S.E.E.D. Campus is on a 170+ acre property that formerly housed the Oak Knolls golf course and Franklin Elementary School on State Route 43 in Kent, Ohio. It will be the new home to specialized training and research facilities for Davey Tree and will include a 25,000-square-foot training center and associated offices, a 10,700-square-foot indoor climbing center, 18 spans of non-energized utility right-of-way, laboratories and greenhouses, a container nursery and multiple research plots and fields.

The training center classrooms will be more than double the size of the current classrooms at the Davey Institute across the street at Davey Tree’s corporate headquarters. The classrooms are used to teach many of Davey’s educational and training programs, including the Davey Institute of Tree Sciences (D.I.T.S.) classes, which is Davey’s flagship training program in biological sciences, safety, tree and plant care and management techniques. The anticipated completion of the S.E.E.D. Campus is 2026. Research and training have started taking place on the property, including tree and shrub plantings on research plots and utility and safety training.

Training and research facilities on the S.E.E.D. Campus may also include:

• Outdoor climbing centers
• Distance learning facilities
• Canopy walk, turf/golf fairways and greens
• Greenhouses, research/diagnostics laboratories
• Replicated tree plantations
• Mature tree, soil ecology and wetland research

For more information on the S.E.E.D. Campus, click here.