Accommodations stretched thin for World Cup events

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FORT KENT – Getting the more than 300 athletes, coaches, trainers and officials taking part next month in the Biathlon 2004 World Cup to remote Fort Kent is one thing. Finding places for all of them to stay around this small border town is quite another.

Add the thousands of spectators and scores of international media representatives expected, and it’s easy to see why a host of volunteers have been working for nearly two years exclusively on housing and hospitality.

Hotels, inns, bed and breakfast establishments, sporting camps and private homes on both sides of the Maine-New Brunswick border and from Allagash to Presque Isle have been tapped to house the anticipated crowds.

Even with those rooms, it is the new housing construction at the University of Maine at Fort Kent that has most eased the accommodations pressures.

“It really is going pretty well, and things are moving along,” volunteer Joan Paradis of Fort Kent, one of those charged with finding rooms for accredited biathlon participants, said Tuesday. Accredited personnel include athletes, coaches, trainers, media and officials.

“Accommodations are tight, but we are finding rooms for all of them. We are going to have well over 300 [accredited] people here,” Paradis said.

The Maine Winter Sports Center’s 10th Mountain Division biathlon venue in Fort Kent is hosting the 2004 World Cup competitions March 3-6. Athletes from around the world – including past and hopeful Olympians – will take part in the three days of competition.

Organizers have predicted that between 2,000 and 6,000 spectators will travel to Fort Kent to watch the three-day event.

Paradis and fellow volunteer Patricia Dow, also of Fort Kent, have been working together since May identifying, locating and inspecting potential housing in northern Maine and western New Brunswick.

“It’s been kind of fun,” Paradis said. “We were fortunate enough to do a lot of the leg work in June. We visited a lot of places, so now when we work out of our homes, we can see in our heads where it is we are putting people.”

Complicating the housing situation was the ratio of needed rooms to those available in the Fort Kent area and the fact that teams and their staffs don’t like to be split up.

“The teams all want to be together,” Dow said. “We were not sure we could do that in Fort Kent.”

There now is only one hotel, one bed-and-breakfast and a number of sporting camps in Fort Kent itself for about 330 beds, according to tourism officials.

Additional lodging is available in the surrounding area, and the two women were quick to book those rooms.

Still, neither one knows how things would have worked out if not for UMFK and its new $7 million residence hall. In the final stages of construction, the hall will house 156 biathletes.

“What we are doing has been a success thanks to the new UMFK dorm,” Paradis said. “I don’t know how it would have worked out otherwise.”

“This has all worked out thanks to those 156 beds at UMFK,” Dow said.

In addition to rooms in Greater Fort Kent, officials and media folk have reserved rooms in Madawaska, Caribou, Presque Isle and in Clair and Edmundston, New Brunswick.

Contractors this week are putting the finishing touches on the south wing of the three-story UMFK building in anticipation of a Feb. 20 opening date. “We knew two years ago when this event was announced UMFK could be an important participant,” Richard Cost, campus president, said last week. “Almost immediately we offered our full cooperation.”

Funding for the $7 million facility is through a University of Maine System bond that UMFK will repay. UMFK officials, while not looking at lodging the athletes as a moneymaking enterprise, are looking to recoup any expenses.

“We are charging the athletes a flat fee [of $22 a night] to cover any costs we have,” Cost said.

On any given day over the past several months, construction crews numbering up to 75 people have been working in the new facility. Construction began in May, and for a building of this size and scale, work normally would last 12 to 18 months, Cost said.

To get the project done in under a year to accommodate the needs of the World Cup, the university used what he called the “design-build” concept in which the architects, builders and engineers present one unified plan with one overall price tag.

The completed new residence hall will be a three-story building able to house 300 students in double-occupancy, efficiency-style rooms. Every three rooms share a kitchenette, living space and bathroom. A central courtyard area connects the south and north wings.

The World Cup participants are the first official residents of the new hall and also will eat most of their meals that week at Nowland Dining Hall on campus. Maine Winter Sports Center is contracting with ARAMARK, the campus’ dining services contractor, for food services.

ARAMARK has committed 10 executive chefs from around Maine to the event, Jason Carter, UMFK’s food service director, said.

“We have been working for at least six months to come up with menus suited for all the athletes,” Carter said Tuesday.

What each of the athletes needs, he said, is between 5,000 and 6,000 carbohydrate calories a day.

At all three daily meals, the athletes can expect a variety of carb-rich foods including eggs, meats, dairy, pasta, fruit, vegetables and desserts.

In addition, Carter and his crew are looking at the cultural aspects of feeding athletes from at least 25 different countries.

“We will try to feature items they are familiar with,” he said. “But we also want to concentrate on our own culture and the Acadian background.”

When those thousands of spectators looking for places to stay call the World Cup accommodations hot line, it’s Caroline Bouchard who answers the phone.

Actually, these days it’s Bouchard’s answering machine they are more likely to get.

Bouchard, a volunteer from Fort Kent charged with matching spectators to lodging, said Wednesday morning she has placed about 60 people in the past two weeks. In fact, Bouchard has installed a special dedicated telephone line into her home just for the biathlon-related calls.

In addition to rooms at hotels in northern Aroostook County, Bouchard also has a list of families or camp owners willing to provide lodging.

“The goal right now is to place people within a 45-minute drive from Fort Kent,” she said. “I still have spots available and will start moving farther [away from Fort Kent] as those fill up.”

Bouchard has responded to callers from around New England, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and Alaska – all looking for a place to stay during the week of the biathlon.

“When I volunteered to do this, I was told there could be 5,000 people coming to Fort Kent,” she said. While the numbers are nowhere near that yet, Bouchard said those numbers do climb daily.

“Every time I check my answering machine there are at least five messages from people looking for places to stay,” she said.

To find local accommodations for the World Cup, call 877-385-8287.