The economy of Piscataquis County benefits from several sectors including manufacturing, forestry, wood products, and tourism. The rivers, lakes, mountains, and trails have a long history in drawing tourists to our region. Greenville, located on Moosehead Lake, is one of our communities that benefits directly from tourism and outdoor recreation. Several years ago, the Moosehead Lake region went through a visioning and planning exercise, identifying infrastructure investments key to growing tourism.  The goal of these investments is in creating capacity within the community to support a vibrant tourism-based economy, and create opportunities for our visitors to have their needs directly met.

This visioning process identified the need for event space able to host meetings, weddings, celebrations, and functions. This space needed to be flexible, affordable, and provide a direct connection to one of the greatest resources, Moosehead Lake. The Bartley Family, a long-standing family in Greenville, saw this as an opportunity. PCEDC worked with the Bartley’s to help craft their vision for one of their properties, connected them with our Small Business Development Center (SBDC) representative Ann McAlhany to complete their business plan, and then crafted a proposal for submission through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Micro-Enterprise Assistance Grant.

These grant dollars provided the necessary investments to fully outfit their event space, including the purchase of kitchen equipment, tables, chairs, table settings, energy-efficient lighting fixtures, and audio-visual equipment. Community visioning created an opportunity for local residents to commit their efforts towards an identified need in expanding the tourism-related economy. Community investments are key for both attracting visitors and positioning the region as an attractive place to live, work and play.