The owner of a Katahdin-region outdoor center is hoping to expand the site’s complex to include nearly 100 units of housing, 10 commercial spaces and a resort in the coming years.
The development would be added to existing cabins and event spaces owned by the New England Outdoor Center, located roughly 10 miles north of Millinocket, in the Hammond Ridge area.
Matt Polstein, the owner of New England Outdoor Center, is holding the project’s exact details close to his chest, but said more information will be shared at a public hearing on March 4. Nevertheless, elements of the commercial and residential developments have been revealed through new public permitting documents.
“I would probably share more now, but there’s still things we’re trying to work out with the county, and it seems premature to sort of talk too much about the specifics of it,” Polstein said.
This proposed development is an expansion of the outdoor resort, restaurant and cottages already in the Hammond Ridge area, which has become a destination for mountain biking, cross country skiing and other outdoor activities. The Hammond Ridge Trail System has grown in recent years and brought people to the area from outside of Maine, partially because of its proximity to Katahdin and Millinocket Lake, said Mike Smith, executive director of The Outdoor Sport Institute, which oversees the trail system.
The allure of the trails has been amplified by cottages owned by the New England Outdoor Center that mountain bikers and skiers can rent in order to spend multiple days on the network, Smith said.
Initial permitting paperwork submitted to the state in 2025 shows the expansion will include 94 dwelling units, 41 of which would be recreational homes that wouldn’t be lived in year round and 43 would be low-rise multifamily housing. Ten additional multifamily housing units will hold commercial spaces, according to the permit documents.
Mockups show the housing and commercial developments to be just north of Knife Edge Brewing on Katahdin View Drive.
Details about the expansion were shared during a Penobscot County Commissioner’s meeting on Feb. 4 when lawyers representing the Hammond Ridge Development Company presented plans for creating a tax increment financing district and a credit enhancement agreement.
A tax increment financing district is a geographic area in which the local municipality can capture part of the property taxes to be used for area improvements like road maintenance. A credit enhancement agreement is often used alongside a TIF district to rebate a portion of the property taxes collected back to the property owner for further development.
The Penobscot County Commissioners would need to approve the TIF district and credit agreement as the land is in the county’s unorganized territory. Approval for the project itself would come from the Land Use Planning Commission, which acts as the planning board for the unorganized territory.
During the presentation, one lawyer, Jonathan Pottle, said Polstein has been working toward this project for years.
“Mr. Polstein, for several years, has been going through the planning process, that’s reflected with some of the rezoning efforts and permitting, that really is envisioning building off what is already there on Hammond Ridge, really a recreational-based area that’s focused on a nice balance between conservation and development,” Pottle said.
Polstein has pitched plans for the Hammond Ridge land since 2007. A proposal in 2021 included 30 years of projects, including an activity center with a brewery, events center, hotel, artists village, private residences and employee housing.
The project was estimated to cost $85 million in 2021.
A cost for this project was not disclosed by Polstein or Hammond Ridge Development Company’s legal counsel, but an estimate of $3 million for utilities and roads is included in a permit application done by Haley Ward for the project.
The credit enhancement and TIF district make the project more economically feasible and much more manageable, County Commissioner Dan Tremble said.
“I would say that they probably would not be moving forward with the project without both of these in place,” he said.
Commissioners Tremble, Dave Marshall and Andre Cushing set a public hearing for March 4 in Bangor for the creation of the TIF district. This hearing will be the first time the public hears the details of the project.
Nevertheless, other projects in the area have already been publicized.
The Outdoor Sport Institute, which oversees trail systems in the Katahdin region, received more than $1 million in funding to expand its trail network over the next three years. This funding will be used to add more than 4 1/2 miles of trail to what Executive Director Mike Smith called a “destination trail system” originating at Knife Edge Brewing.
The system, which has trails in sight of Katahdin and Millinocket Lake, has brought people to the region to stay overnight or mountain bike, which they might not have done without the investments the New England Outdoor Center or Outdoor Sport Institute have made over the past decade, Smith said.
The upcoming trail expansions have been designed and planned in combination with the housing and commercial development, Smith said, but he’s not directly involved with the projects.
The combination of all the ongoing projects has created a moment of growth in the area, which Smith said is going to continue with the new funding.
“This is the result of over a decade of some really thoughtful planning and development and partnership building and slow construction, and now this new investment is going to really supercharge the next three or four years of development here in the region,” Smith said.