1 to discuss rezoning the Oceanarium as a marine research property, which is how the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory is zoned. Cumming said he cannot make any changes that might increase the footprint or volume of the existing buildings, most of which date to when the site was home to a wildlife park called Aqualand, before the Mills family purchased it, until a zoning change is made.Ĭumming said he is scheduled to meet with the town’s planning board on Wednesday, Dec. The Oceanrium property is zoned residential, and the museum is a non-conforming use in that zone. But that project will be on hold for a bit. The current ceiling in that one-story building is only 8 feet high, he said. He also hopes to double the size of its touch tank, where staff keep live starfish and sea cucumbers and other creatures - and which is one of the museum’s major attractions.Ĭumming would also like to raise the ceiling height of one of the buildings so he can suspend Piccolina’s skeleton overhead while visitors walk around below it. He plans to reduce the size of its lobster hatchery, located in one of 5 buildings on the property, in order to make more exhibition space available. “The Mills’ are happy that our mission is to continue their work.”Ĭumming has a few small changes in mind for the Oceanarium. “The idea that it might be developed was one reason that we bought it,” Cumming said of the property, which is surrounded on three sides by salt marsh and includes a small network of trails with views of Mount Desert Narrows. He previously served as the executive director of SailMaine in Portland for 8 years. When the Mills family decided to put the 19-acre waterfront property on the market two years ago, Cumming wanted to continue their mission of educating people about Maine’s marine life.
Chief among these is the skeleton of Piccolina, a 28-foot humpback whale, that used to be on display at the Bar Harbor Whale Museum.Ĭumming, a Wiscasset native and Freeport resident whose family owns a summer home in Trenton, said they have been fans of the Oceanarium for years - his young daughters especially. The Oceanarium’s reopening will fill a void in the area.Ĭumming said he has been in discussions with representatives of the college and Allied Whale, COA’s marine research entity, about displaying some of the collection that the college currently has in storage. On its campus, COA owns and operates the small Dorr Museum of Natural History, which has a marine touch tank and a wide variety of animal specimens, but it currently is not open to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hotel firm Bar Harbor Resorts bought the downtown property where that museum was located and re-developed it and several abutting properties into the West Street Hotel.
When the museum reopens next summer, it will be the only ocean-themed museum on Mount Desert Island, which each year attracts millions of visitors who come to see Acadia National Park and the surrounding coastal scenery.Īlthough seasonal tour boats in Bar Harbor take tourists out into Frenchman Bay and the Gulf of Maine to view seals, porpoises, whales and other creatures, there is no place on MDI dedicated to teaching tourists more about marine life.Īnother marine attraction, the Bar Harbor Whale Museum, is owned by College of the Atlantic and has been mothballed for the past decade.
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