First of all I want to thank everyone for your support and enthusiasm for Gardens Aglow and the Boothbay Festival of Lights. It is wonderful to see our region come alive during this darkest time of year. To date we have welcomed over 30,000 guests to Gardens Aglow.

The story of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is an improbable one for sure. From humble beginnings nurtured by the hopes and dreams of dedicated group of locals, in just 10 short years we have grown to be among the 10 percent largest public gardens in the country as well as the second most popular destination in Maine after Acadia National Park. Our original master plan was created in 2004 and it was based on an attendance of 40,000 annual visitors. Our buildings, infrastructure, gardens, parking, and restrooms were all sized accordingly. Remarkably, we surpassed 40,000 our second year of operation and even more remarkably, we will likely surpass that number just in the month of December this year. Our annual attendance in 2016 has already topped 160,000. We have welcomed visitors from 63 countries and all 50 states and experts estimate those visitors pumped 45 million dollars into our regional economy while creating hundreds of badly needed jobs.

I make these points not out of boastfulness but simply to demonstrate that our plans for the future come not from recklessness or blind ambition but rather an unyielding commitment to providing an excellent, joyful, educational and accessible experience for every guest. They come to experience our gardens, our forests, our woodlands, wetlands and shorefront. Our remarkable property is the one thing we value even higher than our guest experience, for without it, there is no experience. It is true we plan to increase parking. Our 345 gravel parking spaces were designed to accommodate a little over half of our current visitation. Gravel is not environmentally friendly. It erodes, it washes into wetlands and it is difficult for less mobile folks to navigate. We hope to replace this with one of the “greenest” parking lots in Maine — terraced porous paving pods bounded by native trees and shrubs that will retain and treat storm water many times more effectively than the gravel they will replace. When fully built, they will exactly double our parking capacity. In addition, we have been permitted to use a grass field for up to 200 cars during high volume days — the same system used by countless country fairs.

As we convert some of our existing parking to gardens, we hope to improve some marginal wetland areas created by previous construction by creating a bog, large pond and stream system that will filter storm water and act as a reservoir in times of drought. This pond and its pump station will also provide a 250,000-gallon reserve for local firefighters should it ever be needed. We have been granted all the necessary state and federal permits to do this work and are following the conditions set out in those permits to the very letter. Like other projects our size, CMBG operates under a DEP site permit, which means that we are held to far stricter standards of environmental stewardship than the vast majority of projects in Maine. We are happy to do so because we wish to be a model for others.

Our plans are to grow in a measured, careful way that is both financially and environmentally sound. We aim, as always, to be a place that Lincoln County and all of Maine is very proud of.