After nearly two years of construction, the sprawling 320,000 square-foot Countryside Greenhouse opened its new Allendale Township location. “There’s more space, more selection and there’s a better flow for the public,” owner Dale Buist said while smiling as he sat inside the balmy greenhouse earlier this week. “We were squeezed pretty hard at the other location.”
Countryside Greenhouse’s original home on Pingree Street off of 68th Avenue just a few miles east, was larger – with 420,000 square feet. However, a majority of that space was used for plant and flower production and remained closed to the public.
The narrow aisles were often congested – especially during May - as customers flocked to pick out their flowers and landscape shrubs in the 160,000-square-foot “cobbled up mess,” Buist said, referring to the continuous additions over the course of 30 years.
“This gives us the opportunity to have more variety,” he said of the new location.
Nestled on more than 100 acres of farmland, the new facility boasts a more spacious interior with wider greenhouse aisles than its previous home, and has double the public open space. It also includes a covered loading zone on each the East and West end of the property.
Buist, who owns the greenhouse with his wife, Colleen, said the original 28-acre location will continue to be used for Countryside Greenhouse’s production.