New Lakeside Experience: Dealer.com Terrace

On a beautiful May afternoon, colleagues from ECHO, Dealer.com, and the City of Burlington joined together to dedicate the Dealer.com Terrace at ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center.  To enjoy photos from the event, please go to our Facebook album. As part of the Get Closer to the Lake initiative, the Dealer.com Terrace provides a covered, lakeside dinining, meeting, and educational location. Sugarsnap at ECHO will provide a full menu daily as well as a bar and dinner service on select evenings throughout the summer season.

One of the main "teaching" features of the Dealer.com Terrace is the rain garden. The garden uses rainwater runoff from the roof and upper decks of ECHO and channels it into a garden filled with native plants of the Lake Champlain Basin. The water is then filtered through the garden, then through porous cement before it flows, cleanly, into Lake Champlain.

Phelan Fretz, Executive Director of ECHO, Rick Gibbs, President and Chief Technology Officer or Dealer.com, and Mayor Miro Weinberger all spoke at the event.

Rick Gibbs, CTO of Dealer.com flanked by Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger on his left and ECHO Executive Director Phelan Fretz on his right.

Rick Gibbs summed up the day’s festivities with these words:

Guests enjoy the beautiful and spacious Dealer.com Terrace and Rain Garden on the Waterfront side of ECHO

Burlington is fortunate to have such an impressive science center. ECHO does more than educate and inform visitors through its interactive exhibits and programs – it is a community gathering place where people of all ages come together to learn, to visit, to be inspired. Places like ECHO are what establishes the fabric of our unique community.

When ECHO was looking for corporate partners for their expansion project, it was a natural fit for Dealer.com.  We are both dedicated to the community, we both have a deep commitment to preserving the environment and our natural resources, and we both leverage science and technology to enhance our customers’ experiences.

It’s our belief that the more people feel connected to the environment and the more they enjoy it, the more compelled they will feel to preserve it. This Terrace is a remarkable example of ECHO’s thoughtful integration of relaxation, beauty, and education – and Dealer.com is deeply proud to have been a part of its development.

The Dealer.com Terrace is open every day to the general public and can be reserved for your next special event.