MDI bus system adds Ellsworth route

ELLSWORTH, Maine — The seasonal bus system that provides free rides on and around Mount Desert Island during the summer has plans to add stops in Ellsworth to its schedule this summer.

When the bus system starts operating again on Thursday, June 23, it will run a morning bus from Ellsworth to the Acadia National Park Visitors Center and then another back to Ellsworth from the visitors center in the evening, according to Island Explorer officials. The service to and from Ellsworth is being funded by donations from Timberland Acres RV Park, Eagles Lodge Motel, Witham Family Partnerships, Ellsworth Evening Rotary and Friends of Acadia. The Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce, the city of Ellsworth and Acadia National Park also have helped make the Ellsworth service possible, officials said.

Downeast Transportation General Manager Paul Murphy indicated last week that he and other Island Explorer officials are “cautiously optimistic” about adding the Ellsworth route. With the support of major donations from L.L. Bean and other sources, Downeast Transportation operates the seasonal, propane-powered bus service on MDI.

“We are very enthusiastic and excited about adding the new Ellsworth service,” Murphy said. “We know there is a growing market in Ellsworth.”

Murphy added that the Ellsworth-based donors who are making the added service possible are “very optimistic” about its popularity. He said that, over the long run, the number of Island Explorer buses or runs in Ellsworth could increase.

“We’re hoping this is going to lead to more robust service over time in Ellsworth,” Murphy said. “it will depend on ridership, funding, [and] vehicular resources, among other things.”

Current plans call for the Ellsworth bus to depart the local Ramada Inn at 9:20 a.m. each morning and, five minutes later, to depart from the Hampton Inn on the opposite side of High Street. Three minutes later, it will stop at the Eagle’s Lodge Motel and then, in another five minutes or so, it will stop at the Timberland Acres RV Park on Route 3 in Trenton as it makes its way toward MDI.

The bus is expected to arrive each morning at 10:05 a.m. at the Visitors’ Center, where riders then can hop on another bus into downtown Bar Harbor, where all the Island Exporer bus routes converge. The return trip to Ellsworth will leave the Visitors Center at 4:55 p.m. each afternoon.

Murphy stressed that the service, by law, is open and free to the public. Anyone can hop on at any of those stops, not just lodging guests, he said.

Hotel firm to renovate Bar Harbor pier — Maine Business — Bangor ...

BAR HARBOR, Maine — It has been nearly 10 years since Ocean Properties built the Harborside Hotel on the site of the former Golden Anchor Inn on West Street, and now the resort firm is looking to finish redevelopment of the pier in front of the pier where the Golden Anchor restaurant once operated.

Earlier this month, Ocean Properties submitted a plan to the town municipal design review board to get approval to convert the former restaurant into four hotel guest suites and to erect seven “retail shacks” on the pier and along the concourse that connects the pier to West Street. A house just off West Street will be torn down and replaced with a one-story retail building, while restrooms and an information desk will be built on a foundation that had been intended for a poolside bar.

As part of the pier redevelopment plan, the firm also plans to erect a pedestrian drawbridge between the hotel pier and Stewman’s Lobster Pound, a restaurant that it owns on a neighboring pier. By being able to raise and lower the footbridge, fishing boats will be able to get to and from a nearby beach where fishermen sometimes tie up their boats for maintenance or small repairs.

Eben Salvatore, Ocean Properties’ director of operations, said Thursday that the firm hopes to complete the project this spring.

“We want to get the entrance to the Harborside [Hotel] cleaned up,” Salvatore said of the pier and concourse renovation project. “It will cost over a million bucks, for sure, by the time it’s all done.”

One issue that will have to be decided, however, is whether Ocean Properties will have to get town planning board approval for the project. Salvatore said the planning board has reviewed the company’s plans for the site and that the company is in the process of getting state approval for the footbridge, which has been endorsed by the harbor committee.

Town officials, however, have indicated that planning board approval for the site has expired and that Ocean Properties’ new plans for the site will have to be reviewed again by the board. A date has not been set for when the planning board might review the proposal.

Four years ago, after completing the hotel project, Ocean Properties had proposed erecting a security screening building on the pier for passengers coming and going from cruise ships anchored in Frenchman Bay. That plan was scrapped, but Salvatore said cruise ship tenders have and will continue to come and go from the hotel pier occasionally. Most cruise ship tenders will continue to use Ocean Properties’ Harborplace pier, which is farther east on West Street, he said.

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