Downtown Bangor might be able to learn a few things from Belfast, Camden, Ellsworth and Rockland, but it should not take all of its redevelopment cues from their successes, according to Bangor Center officials.

The downtown organization took 20 of its members on a bus tour on Thursday to the four coastal communities, both to glean a few tips on how to draw more people to the city’s core and to reinforce the effective steps that Bangor already has taken toward this goal.

Bangor Center is funded by a special assessment placed on properties in a defined downtown district and operates independently of the local government, according to Sally Bates. Bates is the city’s business and economic development officer and provides staff support to the downtown organization.

All four coastal stops on the bus tour have bustling downtowns, and all are facing development challenges in areas that abut their urban centers. Belfast, Ellsworth and Rockland all are working to improve their waterfronts, while Camden is trying to find tenants to fill the Knox Mill, which in 1994 was renovated into offices for credit-card lender MBNA but then vacated by the company last year.

Bangor also is pursuing an ambitious plan to renovate its waterfront, which, as in the other communities, is connected to its downtown.

The city’s center is different from those in the other municipalities, however, in significant ways, according to people who went on the trip.

Brad Ryder, owner of Epic Sports and an officer with Bangor Center, said that Bangor’s downtown is not a tourist destination during the summer. Parke Clemons, president of the group and general manager of Republic Parking, indicated that other municipalities would love to have entities with dozens of year-round employees located in their downtowns.

In Bangor, the University of Maine System and its 120 employees recently moved into the former W.T. Grant building on Central Street. The pending relocation of Eastern Maine Development Corp. is expected to result in 50 workers moving into Norumbega Hall on Harlow Street by the end of the year.

Hollywood Slots at Bangor has opened its racino on Main Street, and in the next couple of years the Penobscot County Courthouse and the Bangor Police Department are expected to move into new buildings downtown.

“It’s a bit apples and oranges” to compare Bangor with the coastal towns, Clemons said.

Nonetheless, while visiting the coastal communities many of the bus riders noticed things that they said perhaps should be emulated in Bangor.

Rockland

In between sips of hot tea, while sitting at a table in Atlantic Baking Co., Bangor Frameworks owner David Ellis said that though downtown Bangor has specialty bakeries, it doesn’t have an artisan bakery that also functions as a popular coffee shop. There is one thing that would help this and other types of businesses take root in the city center, he said.

“We need somehow to get more people living downtown,” Ellis said. “After 6 o’clock, downtown Bangor is pretty dead.”

Camden

While walking around looking at parking lots and the Knox Mill, Clemons and Ryder admired some sections of iron tubing that were bolted to the outside wall of the market French & Brawn, a Main Street market. A sign indicated the tubing was for locking bicycles to the building.

Bates said later that several Camden businesses had imaginative sidewalk displays and brightly painted doors.

“We don’t do a lot of daring things downtown in terms of how things look,” she said. “And it doesn’t have to be ugly or weird.”

Belfast

Leaning up against a Main Street building, Kelly Cotiaux of Sephone Internet Solutions unfolded a laptop computer to see if she could get a signal from what looked like a wireless Internet transmitter mounted on an overhead sign. She later said she was able to download her e-mail using the signal.

Cotiaux told other riders on the bus that she has been working on setting up a wireless Internet network for businesses in downtown Bangor and hopes to have one up and running by the start of 2006.

Ellsworth

Rooster Brother and home furnishings store J&B Atlantic were the popular shops among the bus riders in this Hancock County city. Many said they wished Bangor had an upscale kitchen supply store like Rooster Brother, but Gina Platt of the University of Maine Museum of Art said she simply was glad Ellsworth had benches on Main Street to sit on.

On the ride home, Justice Clothing co-owner Eric Odier-Fink said he noticed something at every stop on the tour that downtown Bangor doesn’t have.

“We need a movie theater,” he said. “Every single town had a movie theater on [or near] Main Street except for us.”

Terri Garner, director of Bangor Museum and Center for History, said there is room for improvement but that Bangor should be commended for what it has. She said she’s lived in many places around the country that have not been as successful as Bangor in preserving the vitality of their urban centers.

“I’ve seen a lot of places fail,” Garner said. “Bangor did not let that happen.”