"It is a strong sign that these essential businesses have announced tenancy, and they were intentionally selected to build confidence for the other retailers that we are currently in negotiations with," Dan Bacon, director of development for M&R Development, told Mainebiz in September.
That sentence explains the order in which Scarborough's first downtown is being built. Shops, restaurants and the planned shared street come later. The first tenants are a supermarket, two bank branches, a phone store, a medical office and a café. Tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 6, the first of them opens when Market Basket starts trading at 70 Market St.
A grocery store as the first storefront
Until now, The Downs has been a place you drove to for one thing. Costco opened in 2023 in the development's Innovation District, north of the Town Center. Allagash Brewing's Scarborough outpost opened in another part of the 550-acre site. Both draw people in, but neither one, on its own, gives you a reason to park once and walk.
Mainebiz reports that Market Basket is the first retail tenant in the Town Center itself, at the corner of Market Street and Scarborough Downs Road. Its scale shows why the developers wanted it first. The store covers 80,000 square feet, is expected to stock more than 50,000 products and should employ about 300 people, according to WMTW. A weekly grocery run brings people back far more often than a warehouse club or a taproom does, and every other business on the street benefits from that traffic.
Market Basket's own director of operations, Joe Schmidt, described the appeal in the same terms. "The Downs presented a vibrant opportunity for Market Basket to be located within a true Town Center, with people and supporting services all within walking distance," he told WMTW. Peter Michaud, a managing partner of The Downs, called the opening "the beginning of exciting things to come."
For Scarborough shoppers, the opening also changes the map. This is the chain's fourth Maine store, after Biddeford, Westbrook and Topsham. Until this week, the nearest of them was the Biddeford store. The company was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1917 and now runs 90 stores across four states. Market Basket first announced the Scarborough store in November 2024 for a fall 2026 opening, and it opens inside that window.
Market Street, address by address
The grocery store sits on a short street that already has one place to sit down and has more tenants committed. Reported by the developers and local press, here is what's on Market Street or right beside it as of publish day.
| Business | Location at The Downs | Status this week |
|---|---|---|
| Market Basket | 70 Market St., corner of Scarborough Downs Road | Opens Friday, Nov. 6 |
| The Allagash Bungalow | 10 Market St. | Open Tuesday through Sunday |
| NBT Bank | 2,000-square-foot branch beside Market Basket | Committed tenant |
| Maine Community Bank | 4,000-square-foot branch on Market Street near Allagash | Committed tenant |
| Verizon | 2,039-square-foot storefront in The Breakaway building | Committed tenant |
| Café Luna | Ground floor of The Breakaway | Owner expects to open by May 2027 |
The Bungalow is the one leisure stop, and the rest are places most households visit every week or every month. Bacon's "essential businesses" are the bank branches and the phone store sitting next to the produce aisle.
The Bungalow, now with a grocery store down the street
The Allagash Bungalow has been the reason to drive to the Town Center end of The Downs since Allagash Brewing opened it at 10 Market St., following a planned July 2025 opening. Allagash describes it as a tasting room and restaurant-bar. It pours the brewery's beer alongside house-made wine, cider and cocktails, and the food comes from Bite Into Maine, lobster rolls included.
The Bungalow's posted hours matter more now that it shares a street with a supermarket:
- Sunday: noon to 7 p.m.
- Monday: closed
- Tuesday and Wednesday: noon to 7 p.m.
- Thursday through Saturday: noon to 8 p.m.
Allagash lists trivia nights, big-game watch parties and pop-ups as its recurring formats at the Bungalow. Those are the evenings when a grocery stop and a lobster roll fit into the same trip. Allagash notes that the menu and food availability can change.
Getting there means Scarborough Downs Road
The Town of Scarborough describes the Downs property as lying between Route 1, Haigis Parkway and Payne Road. Its access today runs through Scarborough Downs Road. Market Basket's corner of Market Street and Scarborough Downs Road puts the store right on that main approach.
The second connection is still on paper. The town's Scarborough Downs transportation page describes Center Street as a proposed link between Haigis Parkway and Scarborough Downs Road. For now, every car headed to Market Basket, the Bungalow and eventually the bank branches arrives the same way. That route will be busy during a grocery opening.
What comes next, in the order it's scheduled
Bacon's quote sets the order for what follows the grocery store. Here is the dated pipeline as reported:
- InterMed, under construction at The Downs and slated to open in March 2027, per Mainebiz.
- Café Luna, moving its original Route 1 café to the ground floor of The Breakaway. The owner told the Press Herald he expects to open by May 2027.
- NBT Bank, Maine Community Bank and Verizon, all announced as Town Center tenants in July, with the square footage listed in the table above.
Bacon described the next round in the same interview. "We expect to have announcements coming soon, as we have active conversations ongoing with home furnishing and apparel companies, as well as restaurateurs and breweries, and a variety of other exciting retailers," he told Mainebiz. The essentials are in place first so those conversations can close.
The street the errands are building toward
The Downs' plans for the Town Center center on a "woonerf," a European-style shared street where pedestrians, cyclists and cars use the same space. The developer's Town Center page describes it as room for outdoor dining, live music, seasonal markets and community events. The same page calls it the first time Scarborough will have "a true downtown, one designed for people, not just cars."
The walking network is already part of the site plan. The Downs advertises more than 10 miles of walking, running and biking trails, bike and pedestrian paths linking homes, businesses and the Town Center, 200 acres of open space, and 25 acres donated to Scarborough Land Trust. Site work for the project is being handled by Shaw Brothers Construction for M&R Development, the firm led by the Risbara and Michaud families.
A shared street needs regular foot traffic before outdoor tables and seasonal markets make sense. Starting Friday, the Town Center has the one business that brings people back every week.
Kevin and I have watched The Downs fill in with real addresses on Market Street, and we pay close attention to how each new opening changes daily routines around Scarborough. If you'd like to talk through what the Town Center's next tenants could mean for your part of town, Bedard Homes & Realty is glad to sit down with you. Request a consultation.
