A developer is proposing to build a new four-story hotel in Ellsworth, where the number of tourist accommodations has been expanding.
The proposal to build a 16,000-square-foot, 83-room Home2 Suites on High Street comes as officials in nearby Bar Harbor, where most tourists visiting Acadia National Park stay, continue to question how many more visitors the town can handle.
At times over the past year, Bar Harbor’s elected town council has discussed the idea of a temporary ban on new tourist lodging development, and it likely will do so again.
Gary Friedmann, the council’s vice chair, said at last week’s meeting that seasonal tourist traffic continues to clog roads on Mount Desert Island, as well as on Route 3 in Trenton, which is the main road connecting it to Ellsworth and other communities off the island.
“There’s a lot of different things we could do about that,” Friedmann said. “It’s a regional problem, but I think any action that is done to address this needs to start at home. I’m interested in seeing a discussion of a moratorium on transient accommodations at our next council meeting.”
Tourism on and around Mount Desert Island, where most of the national park is located, has grown significantly in the past three decades, and has expanded even more quickly in the past three years. The number of visitors to Acadia post-pandemic has reached annual record highs of close to or just more than 4 million.
The Acadia tourism squeeze has prompted Bar Harbor residents on the whole to push back on cruise ship traffic, which many say has hurt the local quality of life and should be reduced — though local voters continue to debate by how much.
The increase in tourists to the area has resulted in more of them staying in Ellsworth, either at local hotels or at vacation rental properties. The city, whose population has expanded rapidly in recent years, has had some growing pains as residents have raised concerns about new developments or businesses in their neighborhoods, but there has been little-to-no discussion about general restrictions on growth or certain types of business.
Developers are also building higher-density long-term housing in Ellsworth for area residents, who often find themselves priced out of towns with more oceanfront property.
The newly proposed hotel would be built next to the Hampton Inn on High Street. Like the Hampton Inn, it would be owned by the Witham family, which has other hotels in Ellsworth and Bar Harbor.
The proposed Home2 Suites, if approved by city officials, would fit in with a recent trend of guest rooms being built with their own kitchenettes as fewer people — tourists and local residents alike — eat at restaurants and, if not cooking at home, instead prefer to get takeout or delivery.
A former Ramada Inn on High Street was sold in 2021 and has been renovated and reopened as Hawthorne Extended Stay, while a 72-unit suite hotel called Stone Park opened earlier this year near the intersection of High and Myrick streets.
