Bar Harbor’s Design Review Board has approved the aesthetic lighting design plan of Mount Desert Island Hospital’s ongoing expansion project.
Because the signs are internally illuminated, the board has to determine if they meet the town’s aesthetics.
The approval was for internally illuminated signs at the hospital’s Main Street and Wayman Lane-facing entrances of its new emergency department.
The emergency department addition is part of the hospital’s master campus expansion project, which was approved by the Bar Harbor Planning Board in March 2025.
According to MDI Hospital CEO Christina Maguire the lights are necessary to meet federal emergency room requirements.
The hospital is undergoing a $42 million expansion of its in-town Bar Harbor location off Main Street. The hospital broke ground on that 42,600-square foot expansion this past year.
“The hospital is almost 130 years old and she has served this community,” well for those years, Maguire told Planning Board members, just over a year ago.
The project on a 5.61-acre parcel at 10 Wayman Lane had already received lighting approval from the Planning Board in November 2024.
”We are in desperate need of expanding our emergency needs center,” Maguire has previously told the Planning Board.
The pandemic proved this, she said, as the hospital struggled to keep separation between potentially contagious patients. The renovations and construction will also help create more dedicated spaces for those with emergency behavioral health needs.
Maguire often cites that in 2023, Maine had approximately 15.3 million tourists — a quarter of which, she says, came to Mount Desert Island. That volume of visitors made June through October busy for the hospital’s emergency room, tripling the number of visits compared with the rest of the year.
The redesign allows more visibility to the emergency room. In the summer of 2024, some people with emergency room needs were unable to easily find the hospital’s emergency department, which is tucked away a bit toward the rear of the property, she’d said.
“Their health was at risk. Their lives were at risk,” Maguire said.
The signs for the hospital are part of creating the visibility for its entrance and its emergency room.
The hospital wrote in its application that “this modification can be considered as relocating and upgrading existing signage. The new main and emergency entrances of the hospital will be clearly visible from Main Street / ME RT-3, and Wayman Lane. The proposed signage intentionally provides a clear line of sight between Main Street, Wayman Lane, and the new emergency department entrances for improved wayfinding for patients and visitors, especially those seeking time-sensitive/emergency medical attention.”
Some in the neighborhood also had previously stated concerns about lights from the emergency room sign and how hospital employees park throughout the neighborhood.
The Planning Board had previously approved the channel letter lights. If anything else is used, such as a push-through style, it would have to go back to the board and the hospital plan would be open again to public comment. The hospital would have preferred push-through lettering on the new signage.
“It’d be starting the rodeo all over again,” Maguire said.
If the hospital asks for a modification of standard, that can only be provided by the Planning Board. The lighting change can’t be a minor modification of standards, Bar Harbor Planning Director Michele Gagnon explained.
But for the Design Review Board, the goal was to say if the lighting design meets the aesthetic standards of the town.
The board could say that one sign style or another or both does or does not.
In the end, the board members decided that the new lighting plan for a type three (typically channel lights) would meet their standards, but would still need Planning Board approval. It also approved type five lights, which are less intense.
This story was originally published by The Bar Harbor Story. To receive regular coverage from the Bar Harbor Story, sign up for a free subscription here.
