Although it’s nothing more than an empty storefront, 31 Center St. in Bath will serve as an indoor park where people can go to to drink their coffee, eat their takeout, or socialize with friends at a safe social distance. Photo courtesy of Amanda McDaniel

BATH — An vacant storefront on the corner of Centre and Water streets in Bath will soon open its doors as a warm indoor park where people can drink coffee, eat take-out or meet with friends at a safe social distance to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Grant Building at 31 Centre St. is owned by the Sagadahock Real Estate Association, which partnered with the city, Main Street Bath and Sean Ireland, owner of Union and Company to pull the community center together. The new space will be called Beacon Park.

Bath Iron Works agreed to foot the utility bill for the space for the next six months and will have a station set up inside for recruiting potential employees and conducting interviews.

“The community space will provide residents and visitors with a place to safely meet as the city’s small businesses practice COVID-19 precautions,” said BIW Spokesman David Hench. “Beacon Park is Wi-Fi capable and furnished with an air-filtration system, bathrooms, seating and workspace for up to 50 individuals that supports social distancing.”

Beacon Park will open Monday. Ireland said the space will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. but those hours may shift.

Amanda McDaniel, executive director of Main Street Bath, said Beacon Park will adhere to Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for restaurants, meaning visitors are expected to wear masks until they’re seated, but may remove masks to eat any food they brought. Patrons also are expected to disinfect any surfaces they touch and volunteers from local businesses will occasionally clean and monitor the space.

Ireland said Beacon Park was not designed to financially benefit any downtown businesses, but rather act as an extension of them.

“Bath is a service center and people are coming from the peninsulas and have a couple of things to do,” he said. “This is a space where they can come to between stops and have that human interaction and gain a sense of normalcy. This thing had its roots in helping our local businesses, but it turned into providing residents with an outdoor park they can go to to drink coffee, eat their take-out food, and see other people as the weather gets colder.”

Tonnie Schultz, owner of Cafe Creme, said the hardest part of the pandemic is not being able to provide a space for patrons to sit and socialize.

“A big part of who we are is a community meeting space,” said Schultz. “Before coffee, that was always the goal of my business and now to have that taken away from me, it feels like the soul of my business is on hold.”

Schultz said she believes Beacon Park will not only give people a warm place to drink their coffee or meet with a friend, but also  will help the mental health of the people wouldn’t otherwise have a reason to leave their home.

“To just see other people is so important right now for people’s mental health and wellness,” said Schultz. “I used to see tons of people who would come to the cafe every day and sit and read their morning paper, and COVID-19 took that away.”

The city is filling the community center with outdoor seating it used this summer when it extended certain sidewalks for businesses to use for outdoor seating or extended retail space, according to Peter Owen, Bath city manager.

“We’ll have seating arrangements, stand-up desks, two-tops, all at a safe distance from one another,” said Ireland. “This isn’t a curated experience; it’s funky, but I think it’ll work. I think there will be high school kids in here and older people reading the paper at times and some people eating their lunch.”

McDaniel said many of Bath’s downtown retail spaces are under 1,000-square-feet, meaning they can only serve five people at a time.

“If you’re the sixth or seventh customer waiting to get in, now you have somewhere warm to go until the shop clears out,” said McDaniel.

Ireland warned that patrons misuse the space or don’t adhere to COVID-19 requirements, Beacon Park would close, though he trusts Bath patrons will respect the space.

“If something goes sideways quickly, we’ll stop it,” he said. “We don’t have to do this.”