Emory Hill & Company of New Castle, DE broke ground on the new Sultana Education Center at 200 South Cross Street in Chestertown, MD.
Sultana’s Education Center is being built as part of an effort to double the capacity of the Sultana Education Foundation program, which connects people to the Chesapeake Bay’s history, ecology, and culture, by inspiring them to join in preserving and restoring America’s largest estuary. The organization provides seasonal experiential education programs in History and Environmental Science to more than 12,000 students and teachers annually from 15 Maryland counties.
The completed Education Center will allow the foundation to function on a year-round basis as well as expand its existing programs for schools and the public and will be located near the Sultana, an 18th century schooner which also provides education through hands-on sailing experience.
Emory Hill & Company was selected as the general contractor on the project and, together with the Sultana Education Foundation, is striving to obtain a LEED Platinum certification for the new center, the highest level of certification for environmental sustainability awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.
When complete, Sultana’s Education Center will be one of only two LEED Platinum buildings on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and one of only a handful of LEED Platinum buildings in a National Register Historic District in the United States.
Joe Fox, Construction Director at Emory Hill & Company, said he anticipates construction will take approximately eight months and that the facility will open to the public in the summer of 2016.
