Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing has secured $12 million in New York State funding to build two new greenhouses, replacing structures that date back to the 1960s and that failed catastrophically during a January cold snap, killing hundreds of plants including mature banana trees.
The garden's existing greenhouses lost heat during one of the coldest weekends of 2026, according to qns.com, which reported that the failure wiped out hundreds of plants that had been housed in the structures, including the tropical and warm-weather collection. Queens Botanical Garden described it as the most significant infrastructure failure in its history, per the outlet's reporting. The greenhouses, which cover part of the 39-acre grounds, had also developed cracked and uneven pathways that QBG Executive Director Evie Hantzopolous said made conditions unsafe for garden crew members because of tripping hazards.
Hantzopolous happened to be in Albany when the greenhouses failed in January, and she approached Assembly Member Nily Rozic on the spot, QNS's report states. Rozic and the Assembly's Queens delegation then lobbied Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to fund new construction. Heastie committed $10 million toward the project, and at the Oct. 30 announcement event, he pledged an additional $2 million, bringing the total to $12 million.
Lawmakers Describe Shock at the Scale of the Damage
Rozic said she was shell-shocked by photos of hundreds of dead plants and noted the greenhouses failed overnight, according to the same account. Hantzopolous, for her part, said she was stunned that the state would commit to funding greenhouse upgrades at all. State Sen. John Liu also assisted the capital funding effort, per the outlet.
The new greenhouses will be relocated to the botanical garden's boundary, and the current greenhouse site will instead become an outdoor public garden, Hantzopolous said. The move is meant to make the campus more open-plan and accessible to the public, and the new structures will be ADA-accessible and outfitted with state-of-the-art technology to support tropical and annual collections. For the first time in the garden's history, portions of the greenhouse collections will be partially open to the public, offering year-round educational activities and community engagement, the report notes.
Planning Begins in 2027 as Part of a Broader Overhaul
The planning process for the greenhouses will begin in 2027, with the garden aiming to open environmentally sustainable structures within the following three years, according to the Mann Report. The greenhouse project is one of several developments planned at Queens Botanical Garden over the next five years, the outlet reported, alongside a new Education Center and Children's Discovery Garden.
The $12 million commitment builds on years of smaller capital investments at the Flushing institution. U.S. Representative Grace Meng allocated $500,000 to greenhouse redevelopment and other QBG capital projects in fiscal year 2024, and Meng has said that greenhouse funding and other capital projects will help make the garden a destination for New York City families, pointing to the seniors, students on class trips, and wedding parties who already use the grounds. Meng's own grandmother celebrated her 102nd birthday at the garden, she has noted.
That same year, Assembly members Larinda Hooks, Stacey Pheffer-Amato, Jessica González-Rojas, Steven Raga, Zohran Mamdani, Claire Valdez and Rozic secured $2.25 million for renovations to QBG's rose garden, funding that included upgrades to visitor bathrooms, perimeter fencing and interior gates, per qns.com's reporting. Together, the investments point to a steady stream of state and federal dollars flowing into the Flushing garden even before this latest, larger greenhouse commitment.
