It was a beautiful September day in Port Clyde earlier this week, with passengers boarding the ferry to Monhegan, tourists ordering lobster rolls on the dock, and a few locals trimming their hedges in the sun.
But there was a glaring hole at the center of the midcoast village where three waterfront businesses — the Port Clyde General Store, the Dip Net Restaurant and an art gallery — burned down in a fire one year ago.
That blaze wasn’t the only big change to hit the village in the last year. For one thing, Linda Bean, a relative of the founder of L.L. Bean who loomed large over Port Clyde as the owner of all three of those anchor businesses, died in March. And in January, the community was one of many on the coast rocked by back-to-back storms that washed out roads and wharves.
Now, even though a year has passed, it’s still unclear when Bean’s company will be able to rebuild from the fire, or what form the establishments will take when that happens. Redevelopment plans that Bean had started making before her death may be changing, and concerns about sea level rise are forcing local officials to look closely at the waterfront project.
That uncertainty points to the growing array of issues that all coastal Maine communities must balance as they consider waterfront development projects, including the increasing threat of heavy storms driven by climate change and the need to work with local businesses that serve the tourism and fishing economies.
What is clear is that Port Clyde locals are eager for those businesses to return. The village managed to get by this summer without them, with a smaller version of the general store running out of old Monhegan Boat Line building and the Dip Net setting up a temporary food truck.
But it hasn’t quite been the same. Some locals said it felt slower in the village this summer, and business was down by as much as 50 percent at some of the surviving shops, restaurants and galleries, according to Summer Ward, a resident who is on the Port Clyde Strong Committee which formed after the fire.
“I mean, people came down to support and see, but we’re just not getting the traffic,” Ward said. “It affects everybody. It affects all the businesses, the artists.”
Ward and Lisa Dehlanger, an employee at The Barn Café which sits across from the waterfront, both said they’re looking forward to the reconstruction of the general store and restaurant.
When that reconstruction does happen, it’ll likely be influenced by the risk of worsening floods. The town of St. George, of which Port Clyde is a part, has already planned for that risk in the ongoing expansion of the village’s public landing, raising it three feet above projected sea level rise.
Before Bean’s death, she was involved with the planning for the reconstruction of the general store and restaurant. Her company, Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine, had developed concepts for the new buildings as of early last year, former town manager Rick Erb said at the time.
But this week, Select Board Chair Jane Conrad said the plans have been scaled back since Bean’s death.
“Linda Bean was so devoted to Port Clyde and the general store, and she had the finances to build her dream replacement of the former general store and restaurant,” Conrad said. “And now five trustees, instead of Linda, are making decisions about what the replacement building will look like, and they have different fiscal responsibilities to the trust.”
A representative of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine did not respond to a request for comment.
Conrad said the new buildings will need to have protections against sea level rise, and that their temporary absence might be an opportunity for the town to make other necessary infrastructure improvements related to climate change.
“We already have been working hard to figure out what are the best ways of addressing climate change in Port Clyde, and the fact that there aren’t any buildings right there right now means it might be easier and cheaper to do some of that,” Conrad said.
The Select Board recently authorized current Town Manager Brandon Leppanen to begin making plans for a tax-increment finance district that, if approved by voters, could help pay for those kinds of improvements, such as raising roads, installing three-phase power and improving septic systems.
The town recently received a $75,000 state grant for those improvements as well, Conrad said.
However, the rebuild could take time. Leppanen said the business owners are hoping to start construction next year, but even if it were to happen that quickly, the work still wouldn’t be done by next tourism season.
Some other local businesses are already planning on picking up more of the slack next year. Dehlanger, who works at the Barn Café, said they’ve learned what that will take during this slower summer.
“We plan on more live music, doing some cool trivia nights and bingo nights and really utilizing the bar for the community to get together,” Dehlanger said. “We really didn’t know what we were doing this year. Now we have it down. We’re ready.”
The Port Clyde Strong Committee has helped raise funds for people affected by the fire, as well as the local fire department. The Barn Café is also hosting a gathering on Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of the blaze, at which s’mores and hot dogs will be served.
“It was pretty devastating for everybody. So I think, just to get together and know that we’re all still OK. We’re thriving down here,” Dehlanger said. “We were able to make sure everyone still had jobs and populate this peninsula, make sure everybody had food and booze.”
