The Massachusetts-based grocery chain Market Basket is bringing a second store to southern Maine. It will be the anchor store for a large shopping development on a former industrial site in Westbrook.
The Market Basket store would be part of a half-million square foot shopping complex, located on the site of the former Pike Industries quarry. The chain, owned by DeMoulas Super Markets, has 79 stores throughout the Northeast, but only one in Maine.
“Our customers had been requesting it and we knew this would be a good opportunity to have our second location,” says supervisor of operations Joe Schmidt.
Schmidt says following the success of the 2013 Biddeford store, Market Basket had planned to bring more locations to the Pine Tree State. But the company experienced a setback in 2014 when a highly publicized dispute arose within the Demoulas family, which owns the chain.
The firing of popular CEO Arthur T. Demoulas led to months of picketing by customers and employees loyal to the CEO. The family eventually reached a deal, but by then, developer Waterstone Properties was already considering Walmart as the anchor store for Westbrook.
Schmidt says his company was thrilled when Waterstone decided to bring Market Basket on board instead.
“We look forward to being a part of the community, which is something very important to our company. We should have some new jobs available there and we look forward to that as well, and meeting new associates and meeting new customers and friends to our company,” he says.
Daniel Stevenson, economic development director for Westbrook, says the incident in 2014 suggests a strong loyalty between the company, its employees and its customers, which he says makes it a good fit for Westbrook. And he says the extensive development itself is likely to be good news for the city coffers.
“That’s all net-new or brand new construction. It’s all taxable, so that’s good tax base for the city of Westbrook. And that project, as it continues to gain momentum and investment there, that’ll be additional tax dollars to the city as well,” he says.
Market Basket will take up about 80,000 feet of the half-million-square-foot development. The quarry itself, currently just a hole in the ground, will be developed into an on-site lake. Preparatory site work is already underway, with construction to be complete by early 2019.
Market Basket estimates that its new store will bring about 370 new jobs to the city.
This story was originally published Nov. 17, 2017 at 4:11 p.m. ET.
