06/09/2010
To Be Or Not To Be: West Street Hotel in Bar Harbor Maine
It’s been years in the making, but I believe, (although I’m not exactly sure), that there will be a large hotel built on West Street near the Bar Harbor Town Dock. Tear down of the block of current buildings is slated to start in November 2010.
Over the years someone has been buying up all the older buildings along West street. He has gone before the planning board of Bar Harbor time and time again with plans for a new hotel. As of March 2010 – it was absolutely no….as this quote demonstrates.
After a year of debate, the Bar Harbor Planning Board has unanimously rejected hotelier Tom Walsh’s plans for a $12 million hotel on West Street.
The planning board last Wednesday denied the application in a 4-0 vote, a year to the day after it was first submitted, according to the Mount Desert Islander. Board members said the project did not meet the land-use ordinance requirements, specifically that four-story buildings must include an amount of year-round residences equal to the size of the fourth floor. Walsh, founder of Portsmouth-based Ocean Properties, argued that his plan did meet the guidelines of the ordinance. Preceding the public hearing on the project, a group of eight people, including West Street business owners, urged the board to approve the hotel, saying it would boost the local economy and improve the aesthetics of the area, according to the paper.
Bar Harbor officials and Ocean Properties have debated various specifics of the town’s land-use ordinance and building requirements, including building height, parking and affordable housing requirements since the plan was submitted a year ago. In October, Ocean Properties downsized the project from five to four stories and added more parking spaces to address the planning board’s concerns.
Things keep getting turned down over this and that, too tall, not enough parking, not enough mixed use. However last month it looks like that finally permission was granted through the town appeal board.
Imagine having a business on West street and not exactly knowing if you would be back next season or what. That’s what’s been happening to Celtic Rainbow Gifts. 
Owner Linda Keady can now say that she will be open this season, in the same spot. However, by next year, the building phase will most likely be happening. Who knows, anything can happen.
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Filed under Bar Harbor, Lodging, Quality of life by on Jun 9th, 2010. Comment.
Comments on To Be Or Not To Be: West Street Hotel in Bar Harbor Maine »
This will ruin the small-town feel of Bar Harbor that I have been enjoying for nearly half a century — the feeling of many smallish businesses comfortably interspersed with residential properties. What’s next? McDonald’s? What a shame.
The zoning regulations for Bar Harbor keep chain stores away at the current time. If it’s large corporations you don’t like, I say get involved with town politics. Some of the building in Bar Harbor are pretty old and run down. I welcome folks investing in downtown, but it is the zoning rules that will decide whether it will be large building and shops or small. I like that the hotel will have mixed use, some commercial, some residential businesses in with the hotel. I also like that there is a height restriction. I’m hoping the the Whale Museum and Celtic Rainbow Gifts will both find a new home in the hotel too and be back on West Street when the project is complete.
I tend to default to freedom in private land development, within the reasonable zoning restrictions to protect the town from rampant development. Bar Harbor has been in decline for years. It needs an influx of old style development. Basically new money. Look at the Bar Harbor Club and adjacent hotel. The town fought that for years. If left up to special interests that building would have fallen down by now, and the vacant lot next to it would be some kind of taxpayer funded museum of crabs or something. The luxuries of artists and writers comes only after the worker has expendable income, and it takes private industry to create that income.
Bar Harbor is my favorite place on Earth and these people, are ruining it. Curse you Tom W. You don’t deserve a place in Bar Harbor. All you care for is money money money.