Courtesy / The Knowles Co.
The acreage is traversed by scenic trails.
Updated: September 10, 2019
Bar Harbor Oceanarium, a well-known attraction, hits the market
Courtesy / The Knowles Co.
The Bar Harbor Oceanarium, an educational aquarium with a lobster hatchery on 20 acres, is up for sale at a price of $825,000.
The Bar Harbor Oceanarium, an educational aquarium with a lobster hatchery and ecological marsh walk, went on the market last week for $825,000.
The facility, sometimes called the Mount Desert Oceanarium, has long been popular with local residents and visitors for its touch tanks, educational programs about lobsters, and an expansive 19.71 acres along a salt marsh, with trails and observation towers.
Listed by the Knowles Co., the property at 1351 Route 3 on Bar Harbor’s outskirts includes a gift shop with bathrooms, museum and lobster hatchery buildings, barn, driveway, parking lot, septic system and a grandfathered mobile home near the marsh.
The site has more than 700 feet of water frontage on a salt pond, trails through fields and woods, and views of the pond and the salt marsh. According to the listing, the property is ideal for preservation or residential development.
The owners, David and Audrey Mills, bought and developed the property in the early 1990s, said Knowles Co. broker Jamie O’Keefe, who is listing the property with his colleague Mia Thompson.
“They poured their heart and soul into this business for decades,” he said. “It’s attracted thousands of visitors over the years.”
The couple also once operated a smaller oceanarium in Southwest Harbor. They closed the Bar Harbor one last October with plans to retire, O'Keefe added.
“The interesting thing, as far as the zoning, is that it’s commercially zoned if someone wants to continue to operate it as an oceanarium or something similar,” he said. But once any commercial use ceases operation for a year, the property reverts to residential shoreland zoning.
The buildings are in reasonably good condition. There’s a 78-space parking lot.
“There’s a lot of infrastructure already there,” he added. “It’s got a third of a mile of trails along the property and a couple of observation towers. Its really pretty frontage because it’s got the salt marsh and the salt pond.”
Courtesy / The Knowles Co.
Five buildings included a lobster museum and hatchery.
Equipment such as display tanks could be left in place, if the buyer wants to continue to run it as an oceanarium, he said.
“I think the Mills’s dream, if it’s not operated as an oceanarium, is that the property be preserved,” he said.
Marketing includes reaching out to prospective buyers and advertising, he said.
“It was quietly listed over the summer while we reached out to people and organizations we thought would be interested,” he said. “There is interest.”
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