A 33,000-sq. foot redevelopment challenge nearing completion on Camden Harbor will deliver two new dining establishments to the waterfront this summertime in addition to improved amenities for the boatbuilding business that owns the home.
Thomaston-primarily based Lyman-Morse, which operates a boatyard and marina in Camden, has been working to rebuild its waterfront facility after a 2020 hearth triggered extensive smoke damage to the sequence of interconnected buildings that housed its operations, a restaurant and a distillery.
The rebuild project is on monitor to be concluded by late May perhaps or early June.
“There is a actual strength there in the summertime, but even in the wintertime, with the yachts tied up outside the house, the crews coming and going, function getting done on these pretty incredible vessels. It is a genuinely entertaining location to be and everyone is actually responding to that,” Lyman-Morse Exclusive Initiatives Director Joshua Moore mentioned. “We as boat folks always understood that is what it was like, but it is definitely enjoyment to let a small bit much more of the community in to knowledge that.”
In the course of design, Lyman-Morse has been capable to retain its maritime companies operations going at the Camden web-site by making use of a big creating that wasn’t weakened in the hearth, as very well as momentary office and store areas that had been established up outside of the development spot, but continue to on the assets.
The new facility will feature spaces for the company’s rigging, carpentry, digital, mechanic and canvas retailers, as perfectly as workplaces for venture professionals. It will also involve an enhanced lounge for the transient boaters that use the marina’s docks and moorings.
While Lyman-Morse did not system to rebuild the Camden facility, which it has owned because 2015, prior to the fireplace, Moore mentioned it has finished up allowing the organization to enhance the house and make it extra successful from a workflow standpoint.
“A lot of the amenities had performed fairly a great deal, a lot of years of support and had completed very well, but they wanted upgrading,” Moore claimed.
With an enhanced boardwalk and two new dining establishments, the facility will also offer you non-boating relevant place for each marina people and the public to come enjoy a aspect of the harbor opposite from Camden’s picturesque downtown.
Credit: Courtesy of Lyman-Morse
Jeremy Howard and Andrew Stewart, the nearby males behind Blue Barren Distillery, will be back at the waterfront web page in Could with a new endeavor, Barren’s Restaurant.
The distillery opened at the Lyman-Morse web site in 2019, but right after the 2020 hearth, the functions ended up moved to a blueberry farm in Hope that is owned and operated by Howard’s spouse and children.
The distillery by itself will go on to be housed in Hope. But the new restaurant will give Stewart and Howard a area to showcase their rising line of locally made spirits, as well as blueberry products from Howard’s relatives farm.
Though Howard’s roots are in blueberry farming, Stewart earlier operated the Drouthy Bear in Camden, which closed all through the pandemic.
Barren’s Restaurant will provide comforting pub-design fare, with some better stop seafood selections as very well, Howard reported. The 100-seat restaurant will function a substantial indoor-outside bar as effectively as a courtyard.
“We want it to be that seriously welcoming, snug put to come in for a consume and a burger,” Howard claimed.
Blue Barren Distillery will also have a storefront at the Lyman-Morse facility where persons can invest in spirits and other items like candles and soaps, Howard stated.
A second restaurant, Salt Wharf, is slated to open up on the residence, possible in June, in accordance to Moore. The restaurant will be seafood-forward with a uncooked bar and a rooftop bar “that’s really going to blow some individuals absent, it is a very impressive area,” Moore said.
The new facility also boasts several professional or retail areas that Lyman-Morse envisions regional craftspeople functioning as a showroom for their wares or a gallery area.
The redevelopment job stands out on the harbor as a present day-built facility, but Moore claimed the organization has labored to incorporate design features that provide as a nod to the background of constructing styles that have been in the region. This incorporates getting each individual of the setting up areas developed with their possess architectural design and style as opposed to one prolonged creating, as effectively as the use of gable-design pitched roofs struggling with the water.
“Is it a improve? Yes totally. But I believe it is heading to be a constructive modify and a thing that seriously contributes to Camden as the exclusive harbor that it seriously is,” Moore reported.
Outside the house of the boatyard redevelopment, Lyman-Morse is also looking to create a marina in Camden’s outer harbor. The proposal is continue to in the preparing levels, Moore mentioned.
