One of the Katahdin region’s largest resorts will get an events center and operations building as part of a $1 million expansion plan.
Matthew Polstein hopes to add the two buildings to his Twin Pines Camps resort and New England Outdoor Center in Township 1, Range 8 in northern Penobscot County near Millinocket by next fall.
The Maine Land Use Planning Commission voted 5-0 on Wednesday to approve Polstein’s application to rezone two parcels totaling 32.68 acres on his 1,345-acre property along Millinocket Lake. The rezoning will clear the way for Polstein to build on the land. He will submit building plans for LUPC review in a few months, he said.
Polstein has long touted a $65 million plan to build a large hotel at Twin Pines, which is located about 10 miles northeast of Millinocket on the southern shore of Millinocket Lake, but said that a hotel isn’t part of this effort. He called the two buildings, which together should total 10,000 square feet, “a long overdue piece of infrastructure.”
Their completion “could add a few jobs as the event center grows and helps us grow our demand. It is also likely to allow us to build more lodge units,” Polstein said.
The event center will allow Polstein a chance to expand his business hosting weddings and other large-scale events, usually done seasonally under a tent, to a year-round enterprise, while giving him more space to host conferences and meetings, he said.
Twin Pines hosts about 15 weddings a year, a figure that could triple with the addition of the new conference center, Polstein said.
The operations building will function as a greeting area and allow him to consolidate ski, snowmobile and bicycle rentals in a more efficient location on his land, he said.
The new buildings would be the first new construction at Twin Pines since the addition of three cabins in 2014 and the relocation of his restaurant from Rice Farm Road in Millinocket in 2011.
With the zone change approved, the two buildings will be designed over the winter. Building permit applications will follow, with construction finishing by next fall, he said.
This article originally appeared on www.bangordailynews.com.
