Senator Angus King, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Tommy Beaudreau visited Acadia National Park this weekend to break ground on Acadia’s new maintenance facility.
According to CBS 13, the Great American Outdoors Act is funding the $32.6 million project, replacing the old building that is considered beyond repair in Bar Harbor.
According to Bangor Daily News, the new facility will be built on Acadia’s administrative campus on Route 233 in Bar Harbor. The 32,000-square-foot facility will provide office spaces, meeting rooms, workshops, and equipment storage.
The old maintenance facility was built in the 1950s and has become structurally unsound over the years, but members of the park experienced difficulty getting the necessary funds to build a new one until now. The building’s operations also don’t support the growth in popularity Acadia has experienced recently. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Acadia has seen a 70% increase in visitors over the last decade.
Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider, said in a statement released by the park that the project has been nearly 20 years in the making and he’s excited to see how the facility will improve the park’s overall services. “It will allow us to be better stewards of Acadia’s diverse built environment: ranging from our historic carriage roads to our visitor centers, and everything in between,” Schneider said.
Construction is expected to be complete by the fall of 2024.
