Acadia research facility to turn old bowling alley into hostel

WINTER HARBOR – One of the state’s largest research facilities has announced plans to convert an old bowling alley into a 70-bed, mixed-use hostel in hopes of accommodating larger and more cost-conscious visitor groups to this picturesque coastal area.

The Schoodic Education and Research Center is located in the Schoodic Point section of Acadia National Park, just outside of Winter Harbor.

Since it took over a former U.S. Navy base in 2002, the center – one of 16 centers nationwide facilitated by the National Park Service – has touted itself as a destination for science-based researchers and student groups alike.

With SERC’s latest announcement, which coincides with another project to build a new 125-seat auditorium, the facility stands to become even more prosperous.

“We’ve been looking to target larger groups, particularly education groups looking to keep costs to a minimum,” SERC Coordinator Jim McKenna said Wednesday. “There will be plenty of flexibility with this hostel.”

The project to convert the old 3,800-square-foot bowling alley already has begun. A group from Bangor came in recently to clear the equipment, and McKenna said the renovation work will go out to bid within a few weeks. He predicted the project would cost between $250,000 and $400,000.

“In the post-Katrina world, any construction is expensive,” McKenna admitted. “But for what we’re getting – a building that can house 70 people and can generate income and help serve our mission – I think it’s a solid investment that we’re making.”

SERC is funded mainly through a National Park Service initiative to improve science-based understanding of park resources. The center offers year-round programming in a variety of different areas.

The facility already has several housing options including several one-, two- and four-bedroom apartments but until now hasn’t had a large dormitory-style building.

“The more scientists we get down here, the happier we are,” said Denny O’Brien, executive director of Acadia Partners, a nonprofit arm of Acadia National Park that operates the SERC facility. “[The hostel] will be perfectly fine for individual researchers, and there will be plenty of public space in the building. It’s going to be a real asset.

“It will be sort of nice to have both ends of spectrums – longer-term residential housing and short-term communal type accommodations,” McKenna added. “This will attract a variety of users who are looking for lower costs and are willing to rough it a little.”

The hostel will have 10-foot-by-10-foot rooms with two bunk beds in each room. O’Brien said it will serve as the primary facility for the Schoodic Education Adventure program, an overnight retreat offered to middle school pupils. The lower cost should be much more attractive to schools that worry about gas associated with busing a large group of students.

“We haven’t set the price, but I would expect [rates] to be very reasonable,” O’Brien said.

McKenna said the hostel also will help attract college groups, graduate researchers and anyone else looking for cost-effective housing.

“More college groups are starting to come through, and we’ve tried to develop more of an audience in that group,” he said. “It would have been nice to keep that bowling alley for our visitors, but we hadn’t really used that building.”

The hostel comes on the heels of a recent announcement to construct a $3 million, 125-seat auditorium. The center’s current capacity for functions is about 60.

That project is expected to be completed sometime this winter, and, if all goes well, the hostel should be up and running in the spring of 2007.