COURTESY / THE KNOWLES CO.
Improvements and educational signage for the 20-acre property’s scenic trails are priorities.
Updated: March 15, 2021
Plans in the works to reopen Bar Harbor oceanarium by 2022
COURTESY / THE KNOWLES CO.
After renovations this summer, the nonprofit Oceanarium and Education Center will open at the site of the former Bar Harbor Oceanarium.
The buyer of a Bar Harbor attraction, well-known for its marine touch tanks and lobster programs, is planning renovations and new programs for a 2022 reopening.
Richard Post bought 1351 State Highway 3 in Bar Harbor from David and Audrey Mills for $600,000.
John Bennett of Swan Agency Real Estate represented the buyers and Jamie O'Keefe of Knowles Co. represented the sellers in the sale, which closed Jan. 29.
“We’re looking forward to this and we’ll expand the range of activities,” said Post.
Formerly known as the Bar Harbor Oceanarium, and sometimes called the Mount Desert Oceanarium, the facility went on the market in the fall of 2019.
Long popular with local residents and visitors, the educational aquarium on Bar Harbor’s outskirts sits on 19.71 acres between a salt marsh and a salt pond. The facility includes a gift shop with bathrooms, museum and lobster hatchery buildings, barn, driveway, 78-space parking lot, septic system, and a grandfathered mobile home near the marsh. The facility includes touch tanks and offered educational programs about lobsters. A third of a mile of trails along the property and a couple of observation towers traverse fields and woods.
In 1972, the Millses started a smaller oceanarium in Southwest Harbor. In the early 1990s, they bought and developed the Bar Harbor property, which attracted thousands of visitors over the years. They closed the oceanarium in 2018.
David Mills, a minister and prominent civil rights leader who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma in 1965, passed away last month, according to his obituary in the Mount Desert Islander.
Touch tank and lobsterboat
With his son-in-law Jeff Cumming in charge of renovations and slated as managing director, Post will reopen the facility as the nonprofit Oceanarium and Education Center.
Post and his family have a summer house one town over in Trenton. Although he’d driven by the oceanarium many times and enjoyed visiting it with his grandchild, it wasn’t until last summer that he noticed it was for sale.
John Bennett of Swan Agency Real Estate is Post’s next-door neighbor, so Post contacted him about buying the property and setting up a nonprofit.
“The whole place is fun for kids,” said Post. “We don’t want that to go to waste.”
Post’s daughter and Cumming’s wife, Cristina, is also involved in the project.
All of the buildings need work. Chances are slim that the facility will be open this summer, he said.
“We have to make it handicap accessible and there’s a lot of maintenance,” he said.
The plan is to keep the touch tank and maybe expand it.
“That’s the thing the children love the most,” he said.
The museum houses a lobsterboat that visitors can explore and where lobstermen give talks, he explained.
The plan is to add other activities, including a night sky program with telescopes, programs about marine life, the marine ecosystem and migratory birds, kayaking, educational tours and other educational events.
“We’re working now on various ideas for the organization,” he said.
Also planned is a recognition plaque to honor the Millses.
The goal is to be fully open by the summer of 2022. Limited activities for local groups might be possible this year, depending on the pace of renovations, he said.
Post and his family have their year-round home in Lexington, Mass. He started out his career as a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, then worked on fusion research at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. From that work, he and MIT colleagues started a company called ASTeX, or Applied Science and Technology Inc., a Wilmington, Mass., maker of reactive gas technology. Post served as chairman and CEO.
The group sold the company and, in 2001, Post started NEXX Systems, a designer and manufacturer of electronics processing systems in Billerica, Mass., which he also sold. He retired about 10 years ago.
Financing for the acquisition came from Post’s business ventures.
Plans include working with Colorado Springs, Colo.’s New Horizon Foundation on fundraising for the project. New Horizons is a nonprofit, public charity that supports charitable organizations.
A legacy
“It was obvious to us that it’s an institution,” Cumming said of the facility.
Renovation plans are still early in the process. The general vision is largely to restore the facility, likely with some changes, he said.
“We love what the Millses did,” Cumming said. “We want to preserve their legacy and expand on it.”
Cumming credits Cristina Post, trained as a scientist and educational therapist, with helping to set up the education part of the institution’s new name.
“We’ll be science-based and focused on fun education,” he said. “The Millses were extremely welcoming to kids and we’ll continue that.”
The goal is to attract school groups, the general public and visitors, he said.
Improving and expanding the trail system will be a priority, he said. The trails themselves need some work and educational signage will be installed. The set-up of the buildings will largely remain the same, except there won’t be a lobster hatchery. Aquarium tanks will be filled with various flora and fauna from the Maine coast. There will be interactive exhibits.
“We hope to have a few extra exhibits for kids, maybe an art station, maybe a reading nook,” he said.
The goal is to offer a variety of experiences that will engage visitors throughout the property, he said.
New roofs
Work is needed on the buildings.
“It will require some investment,” he said.
That includes replacing at least two and possibly three of the roofs on the property’s five buildings, and improving landscaping throughout. The two primary buildings total 3,500 square feet and the gift shop is 900 square feet.
The project also means getting in touch with folks in the community.
“We want to hear memories and stories and ideas about what people would like to see,” Cumming said.
Plans also include building a website. For now, Post and Cumming invite folks to contact them, with stories and ideas, through the facility’s Facebook page, where a recent post said:
“This summer will be focused on renovation, restoration, and brainstorming, and while we will not be open to the public this year, we'd like to host small groups who might want to give feedback. And at these very, very beginning days, we'd like to hear from YOU — tourist, islander, Mainer, 'from away-er.' What would you like to see at the Oceanarium? What do you fondly remember? Would you like to get involved? Send us a message and let us know your thoughts.”
The Facebook page can still be found by typing in the original “Mount Desert Oceanarium” name.
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