Planning Board Approves Mount Desert Island Hospital Expansion

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Shops.

BAR HARBOR—The $42 million expansion of the Mount Desert Island Hospital is a go. The hospital hopes to break ground on the 42,600-square foot expansion this year.

“The hospital is almost 130 years old and she has served this community,” well for those years, CEO Christina Maguire told Bar Harbor Planning Board members, March 5.

The hospital has already received state approval for the project on a 5.61-acre parcel at 10 Wayman Lane in November 2024. The expansion and renovation was originally announced in 2021. Maguire said seven years of studying and reviewing what the hospital and the community’s needs are went into the project.

”We are in desperate need of expanding our emergency needs center,” Maguire told the board.

The pandemic proved this, she said, as the hospital struggled to keep separation between potentially contagious patients. The renovations and construction will also help create more dedicated spaces for those with emergency behavioral health needs.

Maguire often cites that in 2023, Maine had at least 15.3 million tourists and a quarter of those came to Mount Desert Island making June through October busy for the hospital’s emergency room, tripling the number of visits compared to the rest of the year.

It is more than that though. The redesign allows more visibility to the emergency room. This past summer some people with emergency room needs were unable to easily find the hospital’s emergency department, which is tucked away a bit toward the rear of the property.

“Their health was at risk. Their lives were at risk,” Maguire said.

The expansion includes a new western-facing entrance, will triple the size of the emergency room, and increase visibility from Main Street. It includes landscaping and wayfinding on its Main Street campus.

“It’s going to make a world of difference to our community,” Planning Board Vice Chair Ruth Eveland said.

The critical access hospital provides emergency and other medical services to year-round residents and visitors, with demand increasing seasonally because of summer residents and tourists visiting Acadia National Park.

It had been undergoing extensive energy systems upgrades at its Bar Harbor main building, has constructed the Kogod Center for Medical Education, also on the Bar Harbor campus, and has acquired the Acadia Family Center in Southwest Harbor.

The board granted a waiver to allow the project to have three-year phasing instead of two to allow the hospital to remain open during the massive renovation. That phasing change for all projects goes before Bar Harbor voters in June.

For this project, there are 146 parking spaces with nine ADA spaces currently There will be 186 parking spaces, two dedicated for ambulance parking and 11 for ADA.

There will be three revised access points to the site to Wayman Lane (two-way) and Hancock and Main Street (a one-way entrance). A large fire engine can access all sides of the building.

The traffic pattern around the hospital was a point of worry for home owners on Hancock Street and Wayman Lane.

Jim Broderick, a resident of Hancock Street, complimented the hospital for its cooperation. He said a privacy landscape on the Hancock Street side and more landscaping was necessary. He said past construction work beginning at 7 a.m. was brutal. He also asked for screening fencing to help with visual and sound issues during construction.

“At the end of the day, Hancock and Wayman are still taking a beating here,” he said. “Almost everybody here will exit Hancock Street and why is that a good answer?”

Maguire said they will continue to engage landowners on Hancock Street about final privacy fencing. They are going to try to use vegetation more than hard fencing because of sightline safety.

Police Chief David Kerns said town department heads talked through the hospital’s goals and looked at the potential Main Street traffic and safety impacts. Originally, the hospital wanted to move the hospital’s entrance closer to Wayman Lane. That would cause congestion with the traffic flow coming off Pleasant Street, he said. The town departments determined that the current plan was the best, he said.

Andy Shea, another Hancock Street resident, also expressed his concern about the traffic flow. He asked if this was the best plan for safety, for the neighborhood or for the overall traffic flow.

“Safety is the number one issue,” Planning Board Chair Millard Dority said.

The hospital also provided a traffic report that was in favor of the final design, staff planner Hailey Bondy said.

Planning Board member Guy Dunphey said that it seemed like there was an awful lot of traffic flow heading up Hancock. He said, “All the accidents were in the Hancock area.” He said it seemed like there was a lot of funneling just going north.

Kathy St. Germain said that when she worked at the hospital, she and other employees entered from Wayman Lane or Hancock Street.

“Those have been the existing driveways since I remember,” she said.

Dority said that though it’s not a perfect situation, it meets the requirement of the land use ordinance.

Noreen Hogan, a Wayman Lane resident, asked if there was a way to save the old trees in the front of the hospital along Wayman Lane.

“They’re old. They’re beautiful. It would just change the whole neighborhood,” Hogan said.

Lowering the grade of the hospital, which is part of the project, would impact the root systems of the trees and also prohibits the hospital from having a normally sized parking lot, hospital consultants said.

Hogan was also concerned about the sound from the exhaust fan on the west side of the building facing Main Street. That exhaust fan will be removed, consultants said.

Storm water plans were also discussed. Most of the public’s concerns were about storm water on the north and south sides of the building. Currently the existing entrance is running onto a neighbor’s property, the catch basin in the street is uphill of that run-off and there is a lack of curbing. The plan includes new curbing and direction toward a new catch basin on the south end of the site.

The project will also include privacy fencing, an extension of a current wooden fence and potentially adding more landscaping and fencing as needed. Landscaping and screening along Hancock Street, however, wouldn’t been safe, hospital consultants said.

The board unanimously found the application complete prior to opening it to public hearing. Planning board member Teresa Wagner continued her recusal on the hospital project because she is on the board of Birch Bay Village.

The neighborhood also had concern about lights from the emergency room sign and how currently hospital employees park throughout the neighborhood.

Dority asked if the additional spaces would help with the local parking congestion.

“It will help mitigate that,” Maguire said. “It won’t fully mitigate the problem, but it will help some of it.”

Hogan said she’d prefer for Wayman Lane to be made one-way. That’s not something the planning board is in control of, Dority said.

The planning board unanimously allowed the hospital to have 36 months to build rather than 24 to keep hospital operations continuing during the project. They also voted to modify the town’s standards for the hospital emergency room sign.

Not having a clear wayfinding to the hospital’s emergency room wouldn’t be meeting best practices, Maguire said. So the hospital had requested a backlit sign. This is against the town’s ordinance without a waiver.

“I’m in favor of people finding the emergency department,” Eveland said.

“I can’t think of anything that makes more sense,” planning board member Clark Stivers said.

The board also granted a modification related to buffering and screening.

The hospital is now just waiting for its Chapter 500 review and going through a Site Location of Development Act (SLODA)permitting process. This is with the DEP and EPA. A lot of larger organizations review the plan. That takes three to four months.

“A SLODA ensures environmental conditions compliance and is managed by the DEP,” said Derek Veilleux, senior principal, director of health and wellness practice at SMRT Architects and Engineers.

The goal is to have shovels in the ground in the second quarter of 2025. Maguire said, March 5, that there have been people inquiring about moving the historic caretaker’s cottage that was once a part of an oceanfront estate, which will be torn down as part of the project.

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FUNDING

Maguire said that the hospital has done everything it can to minimize debt related to the project. The majority of the funding is $42 million in construction, and the hospital is raising a total $55 million so that it doesn’t cannibalize unrestricted giving during this construction.

The hospital is 80% into its fundraising achievement. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King have also secured $5 million in federal funds.

Maguire said the hospital plans to go public with the campaign next summer at which point the the hospital will hopefully be at 90% of the total funding.

“We’re so excited with the support we’ve been receiving,” she said.

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Hospital’s Draft Environmental Assessment Available for Public Comment

Mount Desert Island Hospital (MDIH) is seeking public input on a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for its Master Campus Expansion and Renovation Project, which evaluates potential environmental impacts associated with the proposed project.

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and applicable federal, state, and local regulations, this assessment reviews the anticipated effects on land use, water resources, air quality, wildlife, and other environmental factors.

The 30-day public comment period will be open from March 5, 2025, to April 5, 2025.

To review the document and its appendices, please visit mdihospital.org/EAPublicComment. We encourage public participation in this process. Comments can be submitted via email at EAPublicComment@mdihospital.org.

All comments must be submitted by April 5, 2025, to be considered in the final assessment.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

https://www.barharbormaine.gov/AgendaCenter/Planning-Board-13

https://www.barharbormaine.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03052025-3575

https://www.barharbormaine.gov/282/Planning-Board

https://www.townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=37&id=56509

Hospital application materials:

• Application (submitted 1/9/2025)

• Public Comment (posted 1/14/2025)

• Stormwater Information (posted 1/15/2025)

• Abutters Notice (posted 1/17/2025)

• Proof of payment (received 1/16/2025)

• Supplemental material (received 1/22/2025)

• Revised Site Plans (received 1/22/2025)

• Additional Submission - Site Coverage Calculations (received 1/24/2025)

• Public Comment (received 1/24/2025)

• Additional Submission - Updated Review Standards (received 2/5/2025)

• Additional Submission - Modification of Standards Request (received 2/5/2025)

• Public Hearing Notice (posted 2/6/2025)

• Additional Submission - Second Modification of Standards Request (received 2/18/2025)

• Completeness, Compliance Review, and Public Hearing Staff Report (published 2/26/2025)

• Additional Submission regarding Phasing and Draft Decision (published 3/4/2025)

• Public Comment (received 2/28/2025)

• Public Comment (received 3/4/2025)

• Public Comment (received 3/4/2025)

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