NORFOLK, Va. — News 3 is following through at the Ryan Resilience Lab in Norfolk.
After years of planning and construction and millions of dollars, it is finally complete.
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Dozens gathered Thursday morning at the Ryan Resilience Lab on Colley Avenue to celebrate the building’s competition.
“It’s a landmark facility," said Elizabeth River Project Executive Director Marjorie Mayfield Jackson. "There isn’t one that we know of anywhere like it in the world."
The nonprofit Elizabeth River Project had the building built as part of the nonprofit’s effort to improve the health of the Elizabeth River and the environment as a whole.
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The building and the property were designed to be environmentally friendly.
“This project was kind of a dream come true," architect Sam Bowling said.
Bowling is part of the architect team that designed the building.
He said he’s always cared a lot about the environment and is proud to be a part of what the Elizabeth River Project is doing.
“It makes me excited for the future of them and for the region," Bowling said. "I want to see more people adopt a lot of these strategies and try to put these same kinds of things into practice all around.”
In the fall of 2023, volunteers from News 3 and the community helped plant the plants that make up the lab’s living shoreline.
Thursday morning, the ceremony ended with the release of a great blue heron.
Jackson said it represents the progress that has been made and the nonprofit’s hopes for the future.
"We want this to be the gathering place in this region for falling in love with your river again and also discovering practical, hopeful solutions to our coming challenges of climate change and sea level rise," said Jackson.
A public grand opening is scheduled to be held June 1.
