The Bellevue City Council has chosen Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects to design a new visitor center and education center at the Bellevue Botanical Garden.

The city will pay OSKA, a Seattle-based firm, $997,000 to design facilities at the Botanical Garden to better accommodate more than 150,000 annual visits, as well as 140,000 visitors who come for Garden d’Lights each winter.

The facilities, which will have green design features and be consistent with the residential character of the Botanical Garden and its surroundings, are funded in part by the 2008 parks levy. The Bellevue Botanical Garden Society is raising the balance.

The Botanical Garden master plan, approved by the council in January, calls for:

A new visitor center, to be built at a new entry point right on Main Street, for orientation, interpretation and gathering for garden tours;

Remodeling the current visitor center – the Shorts House – to serve as an informal gathering place and resource center;

A new education center to replace the existing office/caretaker’s house near Main Street;

Enlarging the parking lot with low-impact development techniques; and

Related site improvements, including a relocated entry drive and entry sequence, moving the Sharp Cabin and additional pathways and landscape plantings.