Davey Tree SEED Campus

Founded in 1880, The Davey Tree Expert Company is an old-growth giant of the green industry, setting the standard for environmentally responsible tree services, grounds maintenance and environmental consulting for residential, commercial and utility clients. It is one of the nation’s 10 largest employee-owned companies, with more than 12,000 employees and $1.8 billion in annual sales. It has been based in Kent, Ohio, since its inception and its headquarters is the unofficial gateway to the city. Seeking to remain at the forefront of workforce training and expertise in plant care, Davey Tree purchased a former golf course property across from its corporate headquarters with plans to establish a specialized training and research campus. 

Today, the Davey SEED (Science, Employee Education and Development) Campus has emerged as a significant project of impressive scale. Coordinated through a master planning process with SmithGroup, the project spans nearly 200 acres and comprises a 70,000-square-foot training and research center, a unique array of field-training facilities, and numerous gardens, greenhouses and research plots. As Davey Tree conducts science-based research and develops practices to preserve and enhance the environment, the SEED Campus itself is a model of sustainability. It strives to achieve net zero energy use thanks to a high-performing building and two-acre solar array. It is one of 24 projects worldwide selected for a whole life carbon study pilot program by the MEP2040, playing a role in strengthening future carbon rating systems.

The Davey SEED master plan seeks to reestablish a healthy, functioning ecosystem on what was a highly managed, chemically dependent golf course. From the main entrance across the street from the Davey Tree headquarters, the southwest quadrant of the SEED Campus retains the rolling topography of the golf course, where an entry drive winds to a high point that offers a sense of arrival and a grand overview of the site. The drive skirts an expansive arboretum that will be open to the public for education and enjoyment, featuring an ornamental trees collection, native Ohio garden, pollinator garden, water garden and walking paths with a potential future connection to a regional trail network. Nearly 43,000 cubic yards of earth were moved to establish areas for research plots, nurseries and greenhouses, and a pond that captures runoff used for irrigation. 

Beyond the pond, the new Davey SEED facility sits near the property center. The east half of the campus is devoted to a number of research plots and specialized training settings, which include non-energized powerline spans to train safe practices for overhead maintenance of utility rights-of-way, an elevated canopy walk to practice climbing on mature tree canopies, and three golf course holes retained for turfgrass research. Dozens of acres were left largely untouched to preserve a 200-year-old stand of oaks, a Class 3 bog, and a riparian woodland and wetland along the Cuyahoga River.

The Davey SEED facility evokes a collection of farm buildings, made up of three structures clad in galvanized aluminum and linked by light-filled breezeways. This design strategy reduces its scale and massing on the landscape and provides more flexible code requirements than a single 70,000-gsf building. Each houses a component of the SEED’s three-pronged programming of research, education and community. It includes research laboratories, a two-story indoor climbing center for training aloft, and large gathering spaces to host events and conferences, with a 25-foot-high glass wall that showcases the campus. Inside and out, materials are humble and practical applications of concrete, glass and especially wood, and demonstrate beauty and versatility in everything from chipboard walls to 30-foot-high live-edge slab fins. Whether it’s an amphitheater made with locally quarried limestone or a building carefully oriented to highlight a specimen tree, connection to the outdoors and admiration for the outdoors is evident at every turn.

Constructed in partnership with The Ruhlin Company, the SEED Campus is truly a watershed project—an enormous commitment by Davey Tree that advances science, elevates employee skills and safety, and provides countless benefits to its community and its industry. With incredible vision, this living laboratory will continue to mature, evolve and lead the way.