Drive down Payne Road on a Thursday evening in early July and the light off the new metal canopies at 10 Market Street looks different than it did last summer. There are bikes leaned against the granite curb. There is a line for lobster rolls that isn't a tourist line. Somebody's kid is chasing somebody else's kid across a stretch of concrete that didn't exist eighteen months ago. The old racetrack grandstand still sits on the horizon, but the field in front of it is no longer a rendering.
For a lot of Scarborough residents, The Downs has spent seven years as a slideshow. It was a plan, a groundbreaking, a batch of townhomes going up behind construction fencing, a promise of a "town center" that Scarborough has technically never had. Summer 2026 is the season that shifted. More than seven years into The Downs, project developers say more than 600 residential units have been built so far, along with a growing number of businesses and restaurants. The math has finally tipped: there are enough people living inside the development, and enough places to walk to, that it functions as a neighborhood on a Wednesday night, not just on a ribbon-cutting Saturday.
Here is what that actually looks like from the ground, and where it fits alongside the parts of the Scarborough summer calendar you already know.
What's Open Right Now at 10 Market Street
The anchor of everything currently happening at The Downs is a single building. Two buildings on Market Street, just off Haigis Parkway, are under construction. Allagash Scarborough and Bite Into Maine will occupy the ground floor of 10 Market St., with second- and third-floor office condominium space for sale.
That ground floor is now the Allagash Bungalow, which opened August 2, 2025. It is not a satellite tasting room. The 175-seat Allagash Bungalow is located at 10 Market Street at The Downs. The menu leans on a partnership most Portland regulars already recognize: favorites that put Bite Into Maine on the map, like their trio of lobster rolls (the Maine style, the Connecticut style, and the Picnic style), plus burgers and fries, with Parlor Ice Cream out of Biddeford for dessert.
If you have not been yet, the practical detail that matters is the schedule. The Allagash Bungalow will open daily except for Mondays. Opening hours are from noon until 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesday, from noon to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and from noon until 7 p.m. on Sundays. A closed Monday changes how the Bungalow slots into a work week, and the noon open means it functions as a lunch spot in a way most breweries don't.
There is a second Market Street building going up next door. A neighboring Market Street building is being designed for a small restaurant or a coffee shop. That is the piece worth watching if you want a walkable morning stop, and it is the piece that will determine whether Market Street reads as a strip or as a block.
The Fall Anchor That Changes the Math
The Bungalow is the summer story. The fall story is a grocery store, and it is a bigger deal than a grocery store usually is.
The Downs, a mixed-use development project in Scarborough, announced Wednesday that Market Basket will be the first anchor retailer in the heart of its town center now under construction. The family-owned regional supermarket chain is set to open an 80,000-square-foot store at the former Scarborough Downs in the fall of 2026 and employ 300 people. The address to remember is the corner of Market Street and Scarborough Downs Road.
For context on why that matters locally: Maine's first Costco opened at the edge of The Downs' business park off Payne Road last fall, and Hannaford has two stores in Scarborough. Adding an 80,000-square-foot Market Basket to a town that already runs on two Hannafords and a Costco is not about closing a supply gap. It is about foot traffic. Grocery is a weekly errand for almost every household, and putting it inside a walkable town center is what pulls people in on days they aren't specifically going out.
A quick read on where things stand, so you don't have to keep the timeline in your head:
| Where | What | When |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Market St. | Allagash Bungalow with Bite Into Maine and Parlor Ice Cream | Open (since Aug 2, 2025) |
| Neighboring Market St. building | Small restaurant or coffee shop | In design |
| Market St. & Scarborough Downs Rd. | Market Basket, 80,000 sq ft | Fall 2026 |
| Cross Street | 96 condo units | Under construction |
| Innovation District | InterMed surgery center | In progress |
The InterMed piece is easy to overlook. InterMed, a physician-owned medical group, is bringing their specialty services to the community with a new surgery center. Combine that with grocery, restaurants, and 600+ housing units and the Town Center starts to cover the four errands most people run every week without leaving the property.
Why the "Woonerf" Word Matters More Than It Sounds
The developers keep using a word that would be easy to write off as marketing. It shows up in every site tour. The Town Center at The Downs will feature a European-inspired "woonerf" street, a dynamic, shared space where pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles move together seamlessly. Popular in cities across Europe and beyond, woonerfs (voh-nerfs) transform streets into vibrant public spaces, prioritizing people over traffic.
Strip the language and here is what it means for a resident: the pavement is designed so cars have to move at walking speed. In practice that is what makes the space in front of the Bungalow feel like a plaza instead of a parking lot approach. Scarborough has beaches and marsh and Memorial Park, but it has never had a place where you could park once and drift between three or four errands on foot. That is the actual thing being built, and this summer is the first time you can feel a working version of it, even at half-scale.
Karen Martin, who runs Scarborough Economic Development, put the scale of the underlying project into numbers this spring: the project is projected to create around 3,000 jobs, and Martin said it has brought 1,500 jobs to Scarborough so far.
How It's Stitching Into the Summer You Already Have
The Downs did not land in a town without a summer. Scarborough has a full calendar already, which is why this year is interesting: the new stuff is starting to fit inside the old rhythm rather than replace it.
A rough map of a Scarborough summer week that includes The Downs without giving up anything you already do:
- Saturday morning. Scarborough Farmers' Market at 259 US Route 1, 9am to 1pm, running June through October, per the Maine Federation of Farmers' Markets. Same as always.
- Thursday evening. Free summer concerts at Memorial Park on Sawyer Road, all show times are 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Park, Sawyer Road (or Scarborough High School if it's raining). All dates are Thursdays. Complimentary Shuttle from the high school parking lot. All shows are free and family-friendly. The Bungalow closes at 8pm Thursdays, which lines up cleanly if you want food first.
- July 4. The town's fireworks night starts at the high school complex. Festivities begin at the Clifford Kippy Mitchell (High School) Sports Complex at 5:00 pm and feature a road race, musical acts and entertainment, food, games, and so much more. This fun-filled evening ends with a spectacular fireworks display.
- Any weekday lunch. Bungalow opens at noon Tuesday through Sunday. This is the routine change nobody predicted a year ago.
- Sunday walk. The Eastern Trail and the Scarborough Marsh are minutes away, and the property itself sits inside a preserved-space plan. With 200 acres of open space plus 25 acres donated to the Scarborough Land Trust, The Downs is designed to keep nature at the heart of the community.
The thing that makes The Downs feel different from a strip development is that none of these routines have to change. The Bungalow slots in before a concert. The future Market Basket slots in between soccer practice and dinner. Nobody is being asked to give up Higgins Beach or the Memorial Park shuttle.
What to Watch Between Now and Fall
Three things are worth keeping an eye on if you live in town and want to track how the Town Center matures:
The second Market Street tenant. Whether that neighboring building lands a coffee shop or a small restaurant will shape whether Market Street becomes a morning destination or stays an evening one.
The Market Basket opening date. Fall 2026 is the target, and grocery is what turns a development into a place people go every week without thinking about it.
The 96 units at Cross Street. The current phase of Town Center also offers new residential units for sale, which will deliver 96 high-end units that are priced just under $400,000. How quickly those fill will tell you a lot about the demand for walkable housing inside Scarborough, which is a question the town has never really been able to test before.
The Town Council's Jon Anderson framed the phase this way when the $70M green light came through: "This is an exciting set for Scarborough. I am pleased that the project is moving forward as planned and will begin delivering the amenities residents want." That is the polite version. The lived version is that on a Thursday in July, Scarborough finally has a downtown block you can walk across, and it is worth an evening to go see what it feels like before the next building opens and changes the character again.
If you're thinking through how The Downs, or any other corner of Scarborough, fits into a longer-term housing decision, Michael Mahoney is happy to talk through the specifics. Let's connect.
