Swords into ploughshares: the Brunswick Park and Gardens Project proposes to convert an undeveloped section of the soon-to-be decommissioned Brunswick Naval Air Station into a 500 acre world-class garden.
The garden, according to the group’s estimates, would create more than 200 year-round jobs, attract more than a million visitors every year and pump some $30 million annually into the local economy through gate receipts alone.
The proposal is one of many being considered by the town’s Local Redevelopment Authority, a federally-funded planning board that will determine how the Navy land will be used after the base closes. A final decision on the proposal isn’t expected until at least 2008.
The idea for the gardens hatched in the mind of retired Brunswick businessman Hershel Sternlieb shortly after the Cold War ended. Sternlieb correctly predicted that without a Soviet threat, the Naval Air Station would soon shut down. From his experience managing several Maine manufacturing ventures, he believed any large-scale industrial park at the base would be doomed to failure because of competition in the global marketplace. At the same time, he longed to bring more than seasonal jobs to the Brunswick economy.
Sternlieb thought a garden would be a perfect fit, because it would draw a large portion of the four million people who visit Freeport and the two million who visit Acadia National Park every year. His idea has caught on; more than 2,000 Brunswick residents have expressed support for the project, as well as two current state legislators.
Under the project’s current vision, some 500 acres west and south of the base runway would be earmarked for the gardens. Walking and hiking trails would be developed to lead to some 13 individual gardens, with shuttles and horse-drawn vehicles taking people from the parking lot to the park entrance.
The grounds would include both children’s gardens and some 50 acres of community agricultural gardens, as well as ornamental gardens composed primarily of native species. Bob Dale, a volunteer with the group, a Navy veteran and a former island homesteader, said it’s important to have a strong connection between the gardens and the Brunswick community.
“We want to connect people to the natural world, especially kids,” Dale said. “We look at this almost like a gift to the coming generation.”
The gardens’ organizers have patterned their proposal after Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. Butchart has more than 55 acres of cultivated gardens on a 130-acre private estate that was once an exhausted limestone quarry. Gardens director Alison Partridge said Butchart welcomes more than one million visitors annually and employs more than 250 people year-round, with 600 additional employees in the high season. She said other gardens have been patterned after Butchart Gardens’ success; she recently visited a new one in Korea.
“It’s extremely difficult, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” Partridge said.