For most of its history, Scarborough has been a town with a shoreline and a highway. Route 1 was the spine, the beaches were the destination, and the middle of the map was a racetrack. That arrangement is changing faster than a lot of longtime residents realize. This summer, if you drive from Pine Point to the Haigis Parkway exit, you will pass a new town center under active construction, three new restaurants that opened since January, and a marsh center running the same guided canoe tours it has run for decades. The interesting thing about Scarborough right now is not any one of those pieces. It is the fact that the town is pulling itself into two centers at once.
The Downs is no longer "future development"
If you have driven past The Downs recently and thought it still looked like a construction site, look again. More than 700 units have been completed at The Downs, with approximately 1,000 residents now calling it home. The commercial side has moved past groundbreaking too. More than 240,000 square feet of commercial space is under construction in the town center, and Verizon, NBT Bank and Maine Community Bank are the latest businesses to commit to locating there.
The name that matters most to people who cook at home is Market Basket. Market Basket is set to open a fourth Maine location in fall of 2026 at The Downs, the first retailer at the heart of the town center project. The Scarborough store will be located at the corner of Market Street and Scarborough Downs Road, an 80,000-square-foot store offering over 50,000 products. For context, Costco already lives on the other side of the same parcel, and Maine's first Costco opened in 2023 on the north side of The Downs, off Payne Road, and is driving nearly 2 million shoppers annually to nearby businesses.
The piece that will change daily life fastest is a building called The Breakaway. Verizon has leased space for a street-level store in The Breakaway, a commercial-residential building on Scarborough Downs Road that will have 76 one- and two-bedroom apartments on four upper floors. It is the first mixed-use building in the town center. Construction started in May. A local artist will paint a mural on the building reflecting the 70-year history of The Downs as a racetrack from 1950-2020. Café Luna will also be located in The Breakaway, moving from its longtime Route 1 address next spring. That single move is a decent proxy for the larger shift. A restaurant that anchored the old commercial spine is relocating to the new one.
The restaurants that opened this year
Three new sit-down places have arrived in Scarborough in 2026, and none of them are chains.
- Bambino's Kitchen on the Route 1 side. A new wood-fired pizzeria called Bambino's Kitchen opened earlier this month in Scarborough serving a wide-ranging menu of pizza, sandwiches, burgers, pasta and appetizers.
- All Grill near Nonesuch River Brewing. The owners of the All Grill food truck opened their Scarborough restaurant in January, serving a menu of Venezuelan dishes like asados boards and hervido soup. It is located at 238 Gorham Road near Nonesuch River Brewing and is open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 9 pm, until 8 pm on Sundays.
- Taste Me on Route 1. Taste Me in Scarborough is in the former Terra Cotta Pasta Co on Route 1.
If you have been counting former restaurant spaces going dark and wondering whether anything was coming back, the answer this year is yes. Venezuelan asados, wood-fired pizza, and a new tenant in a Route 1 space that sat empty are all within a fifteen-minute drive of each other.
The coast is running on its own timetable
While the middle of town rearranges itself, the shoreline is doing what it always does, on the schedule it has always kept. The 2026 season has a few specifics worth pinning down if you have not been down to the beach yet this summer.
| Beach or asset | 2026 detail |
|---|---|
| Season window | May 22 through September 7 |
| Daily parking | $20 per vehicle, collected 7:00 am to 5:30 pm |
| Higgins Beach metered spots | Paid parking allowed 6:00 am to 10:00 pm from May 1 through September 15 |
| Higgins surfing hours | No surfing 11 AM to 5 PM from June 15 to September 15; all surfers must use a 7' to 10' leash |
| Non-resident season passes | All non-resident passes for 2026 sold out as of April 30 |
The sold-out note is the one worth interpreting. Non-resident demand ran through the entire season's supply before Memorial Day. If you have out-of-town family coming in August, they will be paying the daily rate, not walking in on a borrowed pass.
The plovers are the other constraint most people forget until they get a stern reminder on the sand. Each summer, endangered piping plovers call Scarborough's beaches home. They are small, sandy-colored birds that nest in front of sand dunes on the upper beach, vulnerable to natural predators, roaming pets, storms, and human activity. Dog owners must keep their dogs 200 feet away from fencing to avoid disturbing nesting birds and chicks. That 200-foot number is enforceable and easy to violate without noticing.
What residents do on a Saturday that visitors miss
The best-kept structural fact about Scarborough is that its biggest single natural asset is not a beach. It is the marsh.
The 3,100-acre estuary is the largest salt marsh in Maine, situated between the Dunstan and Nonesuch rivers and the Atlantic Ocean, freshwater flowing from the rivers while twice-daily tides from the ocean inundate the marsh. The Audubon Center at 92 Pine Point Road is the entry point most people never use.
Guided canoe tours are running through the end of the season. A Maine Audubon guide leads a paddle along the Dunstan River from 10 to 11:30 am at $16 per adult and $12 per child ages 6 to 18, with no reservations, drop in only, on August 1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. The center is open seven days throughout the summer, 9 am to 5:30 pm. If you live in Scarborough and have never done this, you should. A recent Press Herald column described a paddle that included a snowy egret encountered almost immediately, and before the trip was over, sightings included sandpipers, great blue herons, cormorants, kingfishers, swallows, herring gulls and more.
The Eastern Trail is the other underused piece. The bridge over the marsh is arguably the best half mile of the entire network. From a paddler's angle, the portion of trail that passes through the marsh is arguably the most scenic in the entire trail network. Walk it at low tide and again at high tide within the same week, and you will not believe it is the same landscape.
For an afternoon that does not involve sand, Prouts Neck remains the quiet answer. The Cliff Walk loops around the peninsula that Winslow Homer painted, and the studio is still there for people who want to make a full afternoon of it.
The Clambake calendar, because you asked
The Clambake at Pine Point announced its live music slots for the season, and there are still shows on the calendar worth planning around.
- Below Deck Band, a yacht rock tribute band, Friday July 10, 2026, 6 pm to 9 pm
- Trifecta Band, Friday July 17, 2026, 6 pm
- Bob Marley, comedian, Thursday July 30, 2026, 7:30 pm, doors at 6:15
These shows are rain or shine, and if the weather cooperates the parking lot converts to festival seating, bring your own chair. It is the least pretentious Friday night in Cumberland County, and it is a five-minute drive from Hurd Park.
Why any of this matters
The through line is worth stating plainly. Scarborough has spent most of the last decade being described as a bedroom community with a very good coastline. That description is now out of date. The town is developing a walkable center of its own at the geographic middle of the map, with grocery, banking, retail, coffee, and 76 apartments going up in a single building on Scarborough Downs Road. Meanwhile, the shoreline continues to operate on a rhythm the marsh set thousands of years ago. Very few Maine towns get to have both of those things happening at the same time, on the same tax base.
If you already live here, the practical takeaway is that the map you carry in your head is aging quickly. Café Luna will not be on Route 1 next spring. Market Basket will be at the corner of Market Street and Scarborough Downs Road by fall. The Audubon canoe launches every morning at ten through Labor Day. Ken's Place is already open. And the plovers still do not care about any of it.
If you are thinking about how these shifts affect what your home is worth, or you are watching The Downs closely as a place to land next, the team at Lauren Jones tracks Scarborough at the street level and can talk through what any of this means for your specific block. Get Your Home Valuation to start a conversation grounded in the market as it actually stands today.
