A building that’s a mainstay in downtown Millinocket has been home at different times to a five-and-dime store, a department store and a clothing retailer.
Soon, 230 Penobscot Ave. could be home to a co-working and retail hub for rural entrepreneurs.
Our Katahdin, a nonprofit organization that owns both 230 Penobscot Ave. and the former site of the Great Northern Paper Co.’s Millinocket mill, announced Friday that it had raised $325,000 in a second round of fundraising to build out the inside of its “Opportunity Hub.”
It’s another part of the nonprofit’s economic revitalization efforts in Millinocket that have focused largely on its acquisition of the former mill site. The group last year announced that it had recruited its first commercial tenant to the mill site, a California company that plans to open a $300 million data center.
In downtown Millinocket, the 10,000-square-foot building, once completed, would host a co-working space on the second floor for entrepreneurs and small-business owners who cannot afford to buy their own office space, and a shared retail space on the ground floor, according to a Facebook post from the group.
The group told the Eastern Maine Development Corp. last year that it planned to remove the building’s current faded green paneling and restore the original facade underneath.
The building, which sits on the main commercial corridor in town, was built in 1916 and at different times has housed a bowling alley, cigar factory, an Epstein’s Clothing store, and, most recently, a Miller’s Department store before it abruptly shuttered in March 2008.
Our Katahdin bought the building from the town of Millinocket for $2,000 in 2016.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded Our Katahdin a $200,000 brownfields cleanup grant in 2017 to remove hazardous materials from the building.
