An 8,000-square-foot building in Presque Isle that was formerly a Chinese restaurant was demolished last week.
The pagoda-style structure, built in 2000 atop a hill on Main Street, stood out from the rest of the city’s commercial real estate. Its lot is now completely barren.
It housed Oriental Pearl, a locally owned eatery that was part of the city’s downtown scene for more than two decades. The restaurant relocated to a much smaller space at 19 Davis St. in 2023.
The building was sold in late 2021 for $715,000 to a corporation controlled by Ellis Commercial Development, a Hermon-based real estate company that owns strip malls and other commercial properties throughout Maine.
Prior to that sale, the Presque Isle City Council approved a medical marijuana retail store license for Richardson Remedies at the location. The Caribou-based cannabis business ultimately ended up expanding to Presque Isle in a different Main Street property instead.
Ellis Commercial also owns the strip mall that shares a parking lot with the former restaurant site and is home to USCellular and an office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among other businesses.
It’s unclear what the plans for the site are. Tom Ellis, the owner of Ellis Commercial, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.