Courtesy / Harborview Properties
The Village Market at 97 South Freeport Road in South Freeport, a longtime vacancy, has a new owner.
July 31, 2020
Village market to be revived in South Freeport
Courtesy / SDL Designs
This rendering by SDL Designs of Freeport shows the vision for the front-facing exterior of the redesigned market.
The buyer of a small market and restaurant in South Freeport envisions restoring it as a community hub.
South Free Market LLC bought 97 South Freeport Road from South Freeport Land Co. LLC for $259,000.
Loren Ayer of Harborview Properties represented the seller in the deal and Glenn Jonsson of Legacy Properties Sotheby's International Realty represented the buyer. The transaction closed April 3.
The property consists of a 1,906-square-foot shingle-sided retail building on one-fifth of an acre. It was built in 1950 and renovated in 2007.
The seller had bought the property in 2007 and decided to sell to pursue other opportunities, said Ayer.
Ayer listed the property in September 2016 and saw significant interest along the way with people from Maine and beyond.
“However, for this property, there were far more inquiries from the immediate South Freeport community than with most other listings,” Ayer said. “There was clearly an interest in having a business in that location that would be a gathering place for the locals as well as a draw for others.”
Ayer said the market has traditionally served as a gathering place for people traveling to and from the nearby post office and schools.
“Additionally, with several marinas and a state park close by, it has been a convenient place to pick up sandwiches, wine and other sundries,” she added.
The new owners are Christopher and MaryBeth Lorenz.
The couple has launched a website announcing their intentions.
“The new owners of the South Freeport Village Market building are thrilled to bring the market back to life by renovating the building to house the market/café and new 600-square-foot commercial rental space,” they wrote.
Grab a sandwich
“Our goal is to provide a community center where you can pick up a jug of milk or sit down and have a sandwich and also connect with everyone who lives in this tiny community,” Chris Lorenz told Mainebiz.
The renovated market/café will be fully equipped as a turnkey opportunity.
The market and café have served the village and visitors since the 1950s in many forms, said Lorenz.
Back in the day, he said, the building started out as a gas station and was subsequently expanded a couple of times.
“It’s sort of a hub in South Freeport,” he said.
The Lorenzes moved to South Freeport about 15 years ago.
“We used to go there all the time,” he said. “We loved what it brought to the community. So when it went on the market, we put together a program to try to buy it, fix it up and return it to its old glory.”
Courtesy / Harborview Properties
The market’s interior, seen here in its old configuration, will be redesigned to optimize flow and add a second rental space.
The building needed significant renovation, especially to improve functionality, he said. For example, the kitchen takes up the middle of the building. A lot of square footage was unusable and therefore not generating revenue that could help fund and maintain operations and infrastructure.
“It was obvious there would be very high capital costs up front just to get the place to carry itself,” he said.
The Lorenzes decided to make that investment themselves in order to create a turnkey operation for a new operator.
“The average operator for a market and café isn’t going to have the financial capabilities to do what needs to happen and put the property back on track,” he said. “We have the capital. We have the passion to see that property be the hub of South Freeport village.”
The couple expects to invest $250,000 to $350,000 in the project. Financing is a combination of personal equity and bank debt.
Needs love
The Lorenzes met as students at the University of Maine. After college, Chris Lorenz moved to Boston to work in finance. Contemplating where they’d like to raise their children, they decided on Maine, where he has family.
In 1998, he started financial services firm Pine Capital LLC, located in Portland.
They bought their first home in South Freeport in 2003.
Courtesy / Lorenz Family
Christopher and MaryBeth Lorenz.
The building was constructed in stages over the years and sits on three foundations — a full basement and slab at each end and a crawlspace in the middle.
“The middle is the part that needs the most love,” he said.
The plan is to rebuild the middle section with new floors and new roof. Having been added onto in sections, the walls along the rear of the building jog in and out; reconstruction will straighten the wall. Overall, the project will give the building more structural integrity and straighter lines, while staying within the existing footprint.
The interior will be gutted. Work there includes making the facility ADA-compliant, shifting the market and café to one side of the building, creating a second rentable commercial space to increase revenue, redoing all systems, and refinishing the basement to create usable space for the operator. A new commercial kitchen will be designed for optimum flow with all large commercial kitchen equipment installed.
“It’s an extensive project,” said Lorenz.
Construction is expected to start this fall with the goal of being open by next summer or sooner.
SDL Designs in Freeport is performing the conceptual drafting work. Shannon Richards of Portland design/build and real estate company Hay Runner is project manager. The project will use local tradespeople as much as possible, he added.
Operator search
The couple has put together a simple website landing page announcing the project and their search for an operator. Click here to see the page.
The goal is to attract a high-quality operator with some experience in the industry who understands what the market and café can do financially, he said.
Interested applicants are encouraged to submit their own ideas and menus.
The establishment is well situated to serve schoolchildren, area boatyards and transient boaters who arrive at the local marinas and the Harraseeket Yacht Club, he added.
Jonsson, who lives in South Freeport and represented the Lorenzes in the transaction, noted that the village has a strong connection to the boating and boatbuilding community; the store has long been a replenishing spot for boaters.
“Logistically, and also as far as people being able to interact with one another, it’s a great hub,” Jonsson said.
“We’re going into this as a community development project,” said Lorenz. “We’re hoping that, over the long term, we’re able to recover some of our investment and maintain some value in a unique property. But really it’s about fixing up our neighborhood and giving an operator the opportunity to come into a newly renovated building, where they can put their capital toward inventory and employees and not worry about having to bite off a massive renovation.”
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