Google "small town high street" and chances are, you will see a photo of Ellsworth, Maine.
It's that photogenic.
Ask Tracy Scheckel how she ended up running a city-owned innovation center in the picturesque city, and she’ll probably laugh and say, “I’m a marketer. I didn’t know anything about coworking.”
But make no mistake: she’s building something remarkable in a location that offers more than beautiful scenery.
Tracy’s role at the Union River Center for Innovation started with a short-term consulting gig, a 10-hour-a-week contract to assess what this quiet city-owned building could become. At the time, it was more a legacy than a living resource. Originally imagined as a biosciences incubator that launched a few companies, the space had, as she puts it, “incubated a handful of successful businesses that all moved away and had little lasting impact on the local economy.”
In response to its 2024 Comprehensive Plan update and a business attraction plan the city commissioned, Ellsworth brought her in to help reimagine the space and its use as it begins its second decade. And reimagine she did.
First on Tracy’s to-do list? Fix the friction.
Before she arrived, the process to rent space involved emailing PDFs and making trips to City Hall. “I thought, there’s an app for that. Let’s go find it.”
She researched platforms, called coworking managers across Maine, and eventually landed on Coworks software. “It was partly because your team was actually based in the U.S. and spoke English,” she jokes, “but also because your people listened. When I found a use case you hadn’t thought of, you said, ‘Let me talk to the developers,’ and came back with a solution.”
That early partnership unlocked her bigger vision: turn the space into a flexible, nimble hub that responds to the needs of the Ellsworth community — not just startups and scientists.
The Union River Center for Innovation currently houses a mix of nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and even city employees, with members that include an arborist, a nonprofit supporting coastal entrepreneurship, a therapy practice, a software coder, and the City of Ellsworth’s HR department.
One big change: the former community bioscience lab space is now empty. That’s 700 square feet of opportunity. At the direction of the City, Tracy's exploring whether it could become a community kitchen, cold storage space, or another element of a broader “food hub.”
Why food?
“I’m a total foodie,” she admits. “My guilty pleasure is my food blog where I post recipes and New Jersey Italian stories.” But this isn’t a hobby project. It's a strategic response to economic development data showing food, tourism, and trades are the best fits for Ellsworth’s growth.
Last spring, she convened a food advisory committee that meets monthly and ultimately was the impetus behind Market on Main, an event hosting 24 vendors to spark local engagement.
“We had everything from worm composting to soil conservation to food insecurity,” she says. “It was about showing that food isn’t just about restaurants. It’s a system, and we all play a role.”
Next up? A food deeper dive that they are calling Rooted: Ellsworth’s Place in the Food System. That will include a SWOT analysis and then workshops and classes geared to entrepreneurs looking to launch some kind of food business.
The center is becoming more than a rentable space. It’s a connector between departments, nonprofits, solopreneurs, and citizens who may never have seen themselves as part of the innovation economy.
Tracy is exploring new uses like opening the conference room to job seekers who need a private space for video interviews, collaborating with the city’s social services director to create a centralized list of food resources, and always seeking ways to help existing members and tenants promote themselves and their businesses.
But not everyone is on board. Yet.
“There’s a handful of people who are very vocal and conservative,” she says. “They ask, ‘Why is the city supporting small businesses? That’s private industry’s job.’”
It’s a common critique in rural economic development. But Tracy’s answer is simple: Quality of life matters. Just like libraries or parks, innovation centers serve a civic function — they bring people together, reduce friction, and make it easier to work, start something new, or just find help.
Her job now? Prove the value. She has until the end of the city’s budget cycle to show impact, both in revenue and relevance. As the center enters its second decade with a new focus, it’s important to develop a model that's financially sustainable while serving the community and the local and regional food systems.
“So I’m in this overdrive state of getting us on the map,” she says. Similar to how a library, senior center or vibrant recreation facility contribute to the quality of life and place of a community, the Union River Center is poised to do the same for Ellsworth and surrounding communities. “Change is inevitable and although the center began as a science incubator first, it’s important to learn from the last ten years to help us build on the next.””
Tracy Scheckel may have started as a marketer, but in Ellsworth, she’s become a community architect: bringing together the people, ideas, and opportunities that will help the Union River Center for Innovation shine in its next ten years.