The 27.7 million dollar Acadia Gateway Center is complete after four decades of planning. This stunning and substantial heavy timber entrance to one of the United States most beloved National Parks is the contributions of several partners and funding from private and public support including Friends of Acadia.
With 300 parking spaces, 8 of them electric and 10 oversized, the purpose of the Acadia Gateway Center is to relieve the wear on the park from over 1.86 million visitors this year so far. “It’s a combination of providing a place of entrance and a first look of ‘hey, you’re coming to a great place in Maine.’ And, you also have options for transportation where you don’t necessarily need to drive,” Jarod Farn-Guillette, Region 4 & 5 planner for the Maine Department of Transportation, told Spectrum News. “It’s really a transit hub for locals and people visiting the great state of Maine.”
“Part of the goal of this is to mitigate traffic volumes on State Route Three into Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island,” continues Farn-Guillette. “But also, to showcase that there’s much to do in the larger region.”
The planning process for the building began back in 2002. “It’s one of the highlights of my 40-year career for sure because it’s been so long in the making,” says John Kelly, Management Associate at Acadia National Park. “It’s such a complicated mix of partnerships and funding sources and efforts that had to be made to get it built.”
