Photo / Courtesy Downeast Institute
Dianne Tilton, executive director at the Downeast Institute
Updated: March 10, 2025
Downeast Institute’s capital campaign underway to build affordable housing
Rendering / Courtesy James Fahy Design Associates
Downeast Institute’s housing campus will include new and renovated cabins.
Downeast Institute, a marine research laboratory on Great Wass Island in the Washington County town of Beals, launched the public phase of a campaign to raise $4 million in support of the institute’s housing, operations and other capital priorities.
“The campaign is going slowly but surely,” said Dianne Tilton, the institute’s executive director.
A goal is to build affordable housing for staff and visiting researchers.
“Our facility is primed to host some really great research, whether it’s scientists who come for the summer or a scientist who wants to move here,” said Tilton.
But housing is critical. The institute recently interviewed a researcher for an open position.
“But it’s daunting to move here and not be able to find housing,” she said. “This will help with our efforts to recruit and retain employees.”
In 2023, the institute acquired 10 acres, with five abandoned cabins, close to campus. As of mid-February, the campaign raised $277,000 toward the Phase I goal of $900,000 needed to complete the acquisition.
The plan is to develop the parcel into a housing campus, recruit new permanent staff and expand community outreach by Dec. 31, 2027. Construction would include tearing down and rebuilding at least two of the cabins and renovating the others and a guesthouse on the property.
To that end, Phase II’s goal is an additional $3.1 million. So far, the campaign received a $500,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission.
An environmental review is underway. “We have architect’s renderings and are getting a professional estimate so we are ready to go out to bid when our environmental review is finished,” said Tilton.
James Fahy Design Associates in Rochester, N.Y., was hired for the project. A general contractor will be selected when the project goes out to bid.
In today’s uncertain federal funding climate, Tilton said, the institute hasn’t seen effects as far as existing grants.
But there’s concern about what will become of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, since Sea Grant, its federal-university partnership program, and its Saltonstall-Kennedy Research and Development Program, which assists fishery marketing and research needs, have been funding sources for the institute in the past.
The institute began as a collaboration in 1987. In 2018, it built an expanded $6.6 million marine research laboratory and education center and residence hall. Today the institute has 14 staffers.
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