SCARBOROUGH – Developers at The Downs in Scarborough have announced three more businesses coming to the project’s new downtown area.

NBT Bank, Verizon and Maine Community Bank will all be tenants in a series of buildings being constructed at what will eventually be the new Scarborough town center.

“It will be an open walking community space that will give us that thing that our town has wanted for, well, probably for centuries, which is a central home sort of beating heart for all of Scarborough,” Travis Kennedy, chair of the Scarborough Economic Development Corp., said Wednesday at an announcement on the Downs property.

M&R Development has been building on the property since 2018. To date, the project has produced 700 housing units of various types, along with space for more than 50 other businesses, including subscription retailer Costco and veterinary products developer IDEXX. The downtown area is also expected to feature a Market Basket grocery store and health care provider InterMed.

In remarks Wednesday, Quincy Hentzel, CEO of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, also noted the Downs development has already generated 1,500 new jobs.

“This has already proven to be so much more than just a development,” she said. “It’s become an economic engine for greater Portland and for the State of Maine.”

Michael O’Reilly, New England regional president for NBT Bank, said the bank operates out of seven states, but has only been in Maine in Portland for about 12 years. The move to Scarborough, he said, represents a branching out the bank has been waiting for.

“As soon as we saw it, we had a conversation and said, we’d love to be out here,” he said.

Some businesses to be located in the downtown area are expecting to open this year. O’Reilly said he thinks the new bank branch could open as early as spring 2027.