A new shop specializing in all things Maine-made is set to open in the Bangor Mall later this summer.
Maine Micro Artisans, a Gorham-based boutique that features more than 140 individual artists and artisans from all across the state, announced this week that it would open a second location in the former Lane Bryant storefront in the Bangor Mall this August, in a space more than three times the size of its Gorham location.
Owner Mary Plummer said she’d been thinking about expanding for several months now, and when the Bangor Mall’s recruitment agency reached out to her, she jumped at the chance.
“They are really making a push to get small local businesses in there, and I think we really fit that bill,” she said. “It’s an aggressive push to be open by August, but it’s also twice as much time as we had when we opened the first shop, so I feel great about it.”
The number of locally owned businesses in the Bangor Mall has grown over the past few years, even as the once-booming shopping destination has seen many national retailers leave. Maine retailers and businesses in the mall include Angel Connection, Chayak Crafts, Furniture Mattress and More, and Kokopelli’s, as well as Some Theatre Company, Ten Bucks Theatre Company and Sunshine Fitness Studio.
G-Force, an arcade, bar and entertainment venue in the Bangor Mall, announced this week it would be closing.
The mall has also had a lot of success hosting regular craft fairs throughout the year, organized by the owners of Furniture Mattress and More.
Maine Micro Artisans opened in Gorham’s downtown in June 2022, after Plummer, a soap maker, saw an opportunity to showcase the hundreds of small makers she’d gotten to know selling her wares online.
“I was this small artisan maker, but I was doing it all through e-commerce and wasn’t really connected to my community and the work other people are doing,” she said.
As with the Gorham shop, Plummer said she plans to create a kind of Maine-made department store, with sections for home goods, bath and body products, children’s items, jewelry, clothing and more.
“Think of it as Reny’s, but where everything in there is made by another Mainer,” she said.
Plummer plans to offer in-store classes and workshops led by some of her artisans, and also plans to work with individuals with special needs to offer fee waivers to sell their goods at the shop.
“I’m the parent of a special needs child, and it is really important to me to make sure folks that might otherwise have a hard time getting their foot in the door to have a place where they can show off their talents and make a little money doing it,” she said.
