PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — When Mary Barton Akeley Smith was growing up in Presque Isle, her parents — the late Robert Vinton Akeley and Hope Greenlaw Akeley — often attended parties and other community functions at the Northeastland Hotel on Main Street.
Today Smith, who lives in California, hopes to help the Northeastland start a new chapter as a dining and entertainment destination for Presque Isle’s downtown region.
When Ignite PI was working to obtain nonprofit organization status and establish its new co-working space for entrepreneurs, Smith became an important part of its fundraising efforts. She donated $300,000 from the Mary Barton Smith Family Foundation for start-up expenses and another $1.5 million for the acquisition of the historic Northeastland, which Ignite PI now owns and operates.
Recently Smith visited Ignite PI’s headquarters at the hotel to see progress being made on a restaurant to replace the former Sidewalk Cafe. The restaurant will be called Rodney’s at 436 Main after her late husband, Rodney Smith, who found professional success in the semiconductor industry in California’s Silicon Valley.
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — August 16, 2021 — A new sign outside the former Sidewalk Cafe advertises Rodney’s at 436 Main, a new restaurant that Ignite PI plans to open in 2022. Rodney’s will be named in memory of Rodney Smith, the late husband of Presque Isle native Mary Barton Akeley Smith. (Melissa Lizotte | The Star Herald)
Smith said that after speaking with Clint Deschene, Ignite PI’s director of community innovation, she immediately felt his enthusiasm for helping Presque Isle grow as a business hub for Aroostook County.
“I see the hotel as the anchor of the city. It’s one of the few places left that really shows the city’s history,” Smith said, during a visit to Presque Isle on Aug. 16.
Although Smith’s family left Presque Isle when she was a child, their legacy in the community has often been marked through the city’s public spaces. Smith’s grandmother, Beulah Barton Akeley, was the city’s librarian from 1932 to 1945.
Robert Vinton Akeley was leader of the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Potato Breeding Program and was credited with the release of 40 new potato varieties. In 2018, Smith donated $1 million toward the establishment of University of Maine at Presque Isle’s agricultural science and agricultural business program, which named an endowed faculty chair in honor of her father.
Over the years Smith has donated to numerous organizations and initiatives in Presque Isle, including the Mary’s Mile walkway in the Riverside area, the Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library and Northern Maine Community College’s Rodney Smith Wellness Center, also named in memory of her husband.
But rather than gaining local fame, Smith wants to use her contributions to Ignite PI as one of many means to help Presque Isle grow economically.
“I would like to see Presque Isle have more amenities that can attract people to the community,” Smith said. “It’s nice to work with people [at Ignite PI] who have the same goals and have a can-do attitude.”
With the Rodney’s at 436 Main logo now displayed on the restaurant’s windows, Deschene and the Ignite PI board have begun renovating the approximately 1,400-square-foot space. They are aiming for the restaurant to seat between 65 and 80 people thanks to a planned expansion of the space into the lobby area.
Though Ignite PI owns the Northeastland, the nonprofit plans to hire a management team to operate Rodney’s. Deschene said that if the pandemic does not delay the purchase of building materials, the restaurant could open in early 2022.
Deschene hopes to have the restaurant serve steaks, seafood, fine wines and beverages and other menu items that could establish Rodney’s as a new fine dining experience for northern Maine.
“It’s been since the ‘80s that the cafe’s layout was updated, so we thought now would be a good time to make it modern,” Deschene said. “We’re going from the traditional cafe to a sit-down dining experience.”
Presque Isle’s economic and community development director Galen Weibley noted that the efforts of Ignite PI and donors like Smith will go a long way toward the city accomplishing goals in its 30-year Downtown Redevelopment Plan, which include investing in restaurant opportunities.
“It was a huge loss when Cafe Sopresso closed in 2020. We had food critics who traveled here and said that the quality of food rivaled that of Portland,” Weibley said. “It will be nice to get that type of dining experience back to the downtown.”
