RAYMOND – Sebago Lake is used by thousands of boaters every summer, but there are few public docks where recreational boaters can tie up temporarily for a visit into town.

But a group in Raymond is hoping to place a dock where the lake meets Route 302, so boaters can stop by for a quick visit to any of the downtown businesses that line the busy thoroughfare.

Some Route 302 business owners and the Raymond Revitalization Committee are working with town officials to install a town dock on Panther Run. While he’s long thought Panther Run would make the ideal location for a town dock, Phil Michaud, owner of Panther Run Marina, raised the idea again last fall at a meeting of the Revitalization Committee.

Michaud and two other business owners in the immediate area – Walt Manchester, of The Good Life Market, and Bill Coppersmith, of Fishermen’s Catch – are eager to get the dock in the water and are working with town regulators to make the idea a reality.

The town dock, they say, could especially benefit Frye Island residents, who now must adhere to a ferry schedule. With the town dock, islanders could bypass the ferry and the long drive around Raymond Cape into downtown Raymond and instead use their own boats for a quick run into town.

“Last fall, I went to a Raymond Revitalization Committee meeting, and they were talking about ways to increase business on Route 302 and I had mentioned having the summer people from the lake, Frye Island especially, being able to come across on their boats, and everybody said, oh, that’s a great idea,” Michaud said.

Michaud is envisioning a simple wooden dock in which two boats could tie up on either side of the dock, which would be anchored in-season to the land at the Veterans Memorial Park. While dock usage rules would need to be determined, Michaud said there would likely be a time limit and that no vehicle would be allowed to park for an extended time period in the town-owned parking lot, which also serves as a picnic area. Also, he said, the project would be limited to a dock, not a launch similar to the Raymond Boat Ramp, located about a mile north on Route 302.

“The purpose is for short-term tie-up,” said Manchester, of The Good Life Market, located directly across from the proposed site. “When you’re on Sebago Lake, there are very few places you can access town services. If you have to go to a hardware store, or you need to pick up groceries, there are very few places on Sebago where you can get to those types of services, and here we’ve got the lake coming right up to Route 302, so why don’t we make it accessible?”

The proposed site of a town dock is already an unofficial off-loading site for boaters aiming to access Raymond services and stores. A dock would provide easier and safer access, the business owners said. Coppersmith said boaters from Frye Island already disembark at the veterans park to retrieve orders they’ve phoned in to Fishermen’s Catch.

“The ferry can be extremely inconvenient,” he said. “You might have to wait in line for an hour at times. People can place an order for cooked lobsters but they can show up late waiting for the ferry. A lot of people do come over on their boat, but they have no place to tie up. So they leave their boat floating in the river and send someone up the road.”

Having an official town dock, which would be paid for by businesses and donated to the town, which would remove it in the fall and replace it in the spring, would be a feather in Raymond’s cap, the three owners said, and would help market Raymond to Sebago Lake users.

“It’d be another thing to advertise. Come by boat, come shop at our markets,” Coppersmith said. “Boat access is huge, especially for people out on the lake. Really, the only place that has boat access for food is the Frye Island Cafe?.”

“There’s nothing out there except the Frye Island Cafe? and store and they have very limited parking over there,” added Michaud. “And it’s very busy because you’ve got thousands of people out there on a good weekend. So you might have to wait to get onto that dock for 20 to 30 minutes at times. Unfortunately, there’s no place to eat on this lake other than that.”

The Raymond Revitalization Committee, headed by Sam Gifford and Wayne Holmquist, backs the project due to its economy-boosting promise.

Holmquist remembers the meeting at which Michaud raised the idea.

“The [businesses] had expressed a desire to have a place for particularly the people on Frye Island to land when the ferry wasn’t running, or to slide over at any time of day when the ferry wasn’t coming and going to pick up whatever they needed – from hardware to beer to sandwiches to lobsters. So we said, why can’t that be cured?” he said.

With the money for the dock already donated and a dock in the process of being redecked, Michaud said, the last step is getting approval from the town, a process that is taking longer than the businesses were expecting. Town Manager Don Willard said certain official steps need to be taken before selectmen can authorize the dock.

“I’m 100 percent supportive of that idea,” Willard said. “But it’s not as simple as just saying, ‘Done.’ Of course, you have to make sure that it’s something the code office has reviewed and make sure that any appropriate state and local approvals are obtained.”

According to Michaud, no attendant would be needed, and the dock would be included under the town’s existing insurance policy that covers the Raymond Boat Ramp.

“The town already has in place a liability policy for the dock at Raymond Beach so they’d just be adding another address basically to that policy,” Michaud said. “That’s all it would be.”

Michaud and fellow business owners were hoping the town dock would be in place by Memorial Day, figuring it would be a “simple rubber stamp approval process,” as Michaud characterized it. They’re discouraged by the delay but buoyed by the positive response so far from a supportive Raymond Revitalization Committee and town office.

“We tried to work with code enforcement years ago on this same proposal, but when I asked the former code enforcement officer … he said, no way, and he wouldn’t even talk to me about it,” Michaud said.

“But with the Raymond Revitalization Committee,” Coppersmith said, “they’re trying to drum up more opportunity in town. So we’re thinking this might be a pretty good opportunity to try it now since it would bring business for many and most.”

Raymond business owners, from left, Bill Coppersmith, Phil Michaud and Walt Manchester are pursing a town dock on Panther Run, seen above, to allow Sebago Lake boaters quick access to businesses along the Route 302 strip in downtown Raymond. Photo by Rich Obrey