The College of the Atlantic Mount Desert Center comprises student residences, a staff/faculty apartment, and ground-floor retail space.
Salt is “an island kitchen collective,” Kusserow says, featuring local produce, flowers and bread, prepared foods and soups, a curated pantry, artisan goods, and specialty coffee drinks made with an authentic Italian La Marzocco espresso machine.
Maude Kusserow ’15 is the owner of Salt Market, which takes up the ground floor of the College of the Atlantic Mount Desert Center.“We have so many beautiful places here on Mount Desert Island, and so many beautiful products. I’ve been coming here since I was in my mother’s stomach, and I’ve never seen a place where you could get all these local products in a beautiful, curated way,” Kusserow says. “Salt Market is about honoring this place, and bringing together our wonderful community around good, sustainable food and amazing coffee.”
The center, which is designed to blend in with Northeast Harbor’s Main Street vernacular, is the result of a partnership between COA and Mount Desert 365, a community-based organization dedicated to promoting long-term economic vitality in the town of Mount Desert. MD365 owns the land where the building sits, and COA holds a long-term lease with the group. Funding for the project came from COA’s Broad Reach Capital Campaign, a $57 million fundraising effort that wrapped up last year.