A resort company in Bar Harbor has submitted a formal proposal to the town to redevelop the former Park Entrance Motel property in Hulls Cove into a new four-story hotel and marina.
But with Bar Harbor’s elected Town Council having voted 7-0 this week to extend a temporary ban on new lodging development for another 180 days, it is not clear when the project might move forward.
Ocean Properties, which has owned the Ocean Avenue property since 2001, has long been considering redevelopment options for the 8-acre property, which for several years was used by the firm as employee housing but in more recent years has been unoccupied. The existing motel buildings, which were constructed in 1967, have 58 guest rooms that overlook Frenchman Bay.
Eben Salvatore, director of local operations for the company, told the council that up until this week, the moratorium only applied to projects that could be approved directly by the code enforcement office, and that the Park Entrance project would not have been subject to the temporary development ban. But with the revised wording of the moratorium that the council approved on Tuesday, which expands the ban to projects that need Planning Board approval, the Hulls Cove redevelopment would be put on hold until the moratorium expires at the end of January 2026.
The revised moratorium is “very clearly an effort to halt our progress,” Salvatore told the board.
Some members of the council said that they were supporting the extension of the moratorium only to give town staff more time to collect data on how lodging development has been impacting the town, and that they do not plan to vote in favor of any more moratorium extensions.
Salvatore did not respond Thursday to a message seeking comment about whether the company intends to seek Planning Board approval next year, if and when the moratorium expires.
The company’s proposal, which it filed last month at the town office, calls for demolishing the existing buildings and replacing them with a 24-suite hotel in the approximate location of the existing motel and, closer to the water, adding a marina building consisting of offices, shops, shower and laundry facilities. The hotel would include a 64-seat restaurant while the marina building would include a bar, according to the 153-page development application.
A pier on the property that suffered extensive damage in two January 2024 storms would be rebuilt, Salvatore said.
“The existing buildings have aged beyond the point that substantial renovations are practical,” Salvatore said on Tuesday.
By reducing the number of guest accommodations to 24, the new hotel would be within the 25-unit limit designated by the town for the village of Hulls Cove. The 58 rooms of the existing motel pre-date the 25-unit limit.
Documents filed with the redevelopment application do not indicate what the name of the new hotel and marina would be.
If the marina is eventually built, it would be the only one in Bar Harbor outside the congested downtown waterfront. The marina also would include only the third ocean boat ramp in Bar Harbor, with the others being at Hadley Point and downtown next to the municipal pier.