Photo / Peter Van Allen
Toots Ice Cream’s longtime “Caboose” site in North Yarmouth.
Updated: November 2, 2020
Building Business
Building Business: North Yarmouth’s growth focused on Village Center
Photo / Peter Van Allen
The new Toots Ice Cream site in North Yarmouth.
North Yarmouth is building on its recent residential growth. The Cumberland County town has seen a wave of development, sparked in part by residential development in its most concentrated commercial area.
Its 2018 comprehensive plan spelled out the need for North Yarmouth to “encourage development of a Village Center,” and that already seems to be coming to fruition. The town’s 2019 master plan said “residents of North Yarmouth have called for a Village Center that supports active, safe, interesting and convenient walking and bicycling.”
Toward that end, the latest development is Construction Aggregate Inc.'s new site for Toots Ice Cream on Route 9, known as Memorial Highway here. Slocum Custom Builders is the builder.
Toots will still operate out of its train caboose elsewhere in North Yarmouth, on the farm site where the cows that provide the milk are raised and where, for now, the ice cream is produced. Some tasks will be moved to the new site.
“We do hope to be open year-round at this location. It’s main purpose is going to be for production of our product with a small store front added on. We still plan to have the caboose open during the summer as well,” says Martha Grover Lambert, owner of Toots and sister of the developer.
Toots will rent space from Construction Aggregate. The site will also include another 1,440 square feet of commercial space, which could be for a lawyer or accountant or other professional services, and a 2-bedroom apartment.
The new store will provide a more shop-like retail venue. It’s in the heart of what is a quickly changing Village Center, which is at the intersection of state Routes 115 and 9.
Residential construction has been at the heart of North Yarmouth’s growth, especially given its close proximity to the Village Center. Two housing developments that have opened in the past three years and a third is in progress.
The new growth is anchored by legacy businesses like North Yarmouth Variety, Stones Cafe & Bakery, and the Purple House restaurant, led by Chef Krista Kern Desjarlais, a perennial James Beard Award nominee.
Recent and current developments in North Yarmouth
- Wescustogo Hall & Community Center, which was built by Portland-based Barrett Made
- Averill Insurance’s new site, at 19 Memorial Highway (Route 9), built by Construction Aggregate.
- Rangeway Lane, which has 20 single-family homes that sold in the high $300,000 range to low $400,000s, according to listings. Homes were built by Gravier Homes.
- Stone Post Lane, which has seven single-family homes, valued in the high $400,000 range.
- New rental townhouses on Memorial Highway.
Village Center Estates, a 14-home development now in progress on the opposite side of Route 115. The owner is Construction Aggregate. Site contractor is A.H. Grover Inc. Individual homes now under construction are being built by Windham-based MGM Builders and Portland-based Brush & Hammer. Lots sold in the neighborhood of $180,000. ReMax By the Bay has a new house there listed at $939,000.
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Brush & Hammer at work on a new house in Village Center Estates, a 14-home development now in progress in North Yarmouth.
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Anonymous
November 6, 2020
No one is raising dairy cows at the farm. I'd like to see them milking those Herefords and other beef cattle breeds.
Anonymous
November 5, 2020
Is it ironic that the owner Barrett Made is also a member of the Economic Development Committee? Ironic is the word, right? Also found "supports active, safe, interesting and convenient walking and bicycling” funny - the town spent how much time developing a Master Plan and through all that genius thinking their solution was not to provide a wider, paved shoulder and buffer for cyclist and pedestrian sidewalk, but to put ugly bollards in the middle of the road and then get upset when our industrial community of dump trucks, trailer trucks and other wide vehicles hit them. The reflectors are really useful for 3 days, then they get dirty and are basically invisible, which makes it real safe when they put them in the center of the road in an area marked as a passing zone... but ya, write an article and tell them how great they are doing.
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