Damariscotta Today

Damariscotta lies at the lower falls along the east side of the Damariscotta River, about 12 miles north of open ocean; it straddles busy US Route 1, which serves as both coastal transportation artery and the Town’s main street. While Damariscotta’s population is just over 2,000, the Town is a focal point for some 9,000 mid-coast Maine residents and thousands of visitors every year.

While many of the region’s jobs were traditionally in forestry, lobstering, fishing and manufacturing, professional and service industry jobs are most common today. As a service and shopping center for the surrounding towns of Bristol, South Bristol, Newcastle, Bremen, Pemaquid, Edgecomb, Alna and Nobleboro, Damariscotta is home to many area jobs, although residents also commute out of town. The Town boasts the award-winning Skidompha Library, independent restaurants, an active farmers’ market, the Lincoln County Community Theater, plus locally owned and iconic stores on Main Street like the independent Maine Coast Bookshop, the old-fashioned Rexall drugstore and Reny’s department store, a regional chain founded in the 1940s and still owned by the Reny family. Damariscotta also hosts auto-oriented strip development, and residents are concerned that businesses on Main Street cater increasingly to tourists and less to year-round residents.

In 2006 the Brookings Institution produced a report, Charting Maine’s Future, on Maine’s population and economic trends.  The report spells out three key trends for the State, which also apply to Damariscotta:

• Maine’s population is simultaneously growing and aging
• Maine’s economy is becoming a diverse, innovation-oriented service economy
• Suburbanization and sprawl are increasing throughout the State

Like towns up and down the Maine coast, Damariscotta’s assets and job opportunities draw new residents, tourists and development while the region becomes increasingly unaffordable for young families and youth, who in turn are leaving en masse. One key strategy recommended by the Brookings Institution is “to support the revitalization of Maine’s towns and cities while channeling growth”—a goal that is at the center of Damariscotta’s Heart & Soul Community Planning initiative.

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