Former golf course condos to house Acadia bus drivers

A Mount Desert Island organization is buying a former condominium development in Trenton to use as housing for seasonal bus drivers.

The six condominium units on Route 204 will be renovated into townhomes and used as housing for seasonal workers, which is in short suppl y in Hancock County. Friends of Acadia, which is buying the property, will give first priority to drivers for the Island Explorer bus system, which has had difficulty filling positions in recent years because of the severe housing shortage in the area.

The converted townhomes will be available for Island Explorer bus drivers in 2025, Friends of Acadia said Monday.

Downeast Transportation, which runs the Island Explorer bus system in and around Acadia National Park, generally seeks to hire about 120 seasonal bus drivers, the Friends group said. For the last few years, Island Explorer has had a shortage of roughly 25 to 40 drivers in large part because candidates can’t find nearby housing.

The fare-free bus system , which operates each year from late June through October, was created in 1999 with federal funds and private donations to help reduce vehicle congestion on Mount Desert Island, where millions of people flock each summer to visit Acadia National Park. As the park has become more popular, and as demand for vacation rentals and housing has soared, workers on the island and elsewhere have had difficulty finding places to live.

The condominiums were developed in the 1980s as vacation homes next to Bar Harbor Golf Course. The 178-acre oceanfront course closed in 2018 and since has been purchased by Frenchman Bay Conservancy, which intends to convert the property into a wildlife habitat preserve .

In addition to the condos, Friends of Acadia is buying four adjacent undeveloped lots totaling roughly 17 acres, which could provide space for more workforce housing for Acadia National Park and its nonprofit partners, the group said.

The location of the former condominiums in Trenton has the advantage of being only two miles from Island Explorer’s operations and maintenance building off Route 3 in Trenton. The bus system is expected to expand its routes and services from there when the new Acadia Gateway Center , which is being built next to the Island Explorer site, is completed next year.

The purchase is the latest by the Friends group, a nonprofit that supports and advocates for Acadia National Park, as it tries to alleviate the housing shortage facing seasonal workers.

In March 2023, it purchased the former Kingsleigh Inn in Southwest Harbor for use as seasonal housing. A few months later, in September, it announced it had acquired and planned to develop a parcel in Seal Harbor that is adjacent to the park into housing for the park’s seasonal staff.