PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A vacant steakhouse restaurant on the city’s Main Street could be the future home of a children’s museum.
A newly formed nonprofit group called Children’s Museum of Aroostook County plans to put in a grant request of $100,000 at the next Presque Isle City Council meeting. The grant would help the group purchase the vacant Bonanza building at 725 Main Street.
A children’s museum would attract tourism to Presque Isle and inspire Mainers living in the southern part of the state to visit the north, said Elise Perrault, who is spearheading the funding effort.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel of what a children’s museum brings to an area,” Perrault said.
The city of Bangor provided a building for the Discovery Museum 20 years ago and generates over $2 million in revenue per year, according to the children’s museum memorandum to Presque Isle’s City Council.
Presque Isle could see the same benefits to its area and give young families something else to do around the city, Perrault said.
Part of the nonprofit’s vision includes providing children of all ages with a space for vocational development, training in wood carving shops, small engine functions, and a music recording studio for jobs in Aroostook County.
“Another piece is we’re also wanting our children to stay in Aroostook County and take advantage of our two colleges here,” Perrault said, referring to the University of Maine campuses in Presque Isle and Fort Kent.
The second part of the vision for the children’s museum would be to give local businesses a way to feature their brands that are only found in Aroostook County, from Huber Engineered Woods to Penobscot McCrum potato products.
“This is an opportunity to bring people up here to spend [money] in the Presque Isle area,” Perrault said. “Any city revitalization starts with children.”
A children’s museum in Presque Isle would provide one way of retaining young professionals and their families, rather than having them leave the area in one to two years, Perrault said.
Perrault is originally from Montreal, Canada. She moved to northern Maine in 2019, and plans on staying in Aroostook County. Adam Collins from S.W. Collins, Danielle Stairs from Cary Medical Center, Sara Donahue from SAD1 Tech Center, and Maranda Donovan from Mapleton Elementary are some of the other people involved with the nonprofit.
The children’s museum group is planning a pop-up event to generate local interest at the Northeastland Hotel with donor tours on Feb. 12 and school visits Feb. 13 to Feb. 16 from Presque Isle, Mapleton, Easton, Caribou, and Fort Fairfield students.
