Scott Goss

The News Journal

The sweet aroma of waffle cones soon will be wafting down North Market Street in Wilmington.

UDairy Creamery, the Newark ice cream shop launched by the University of Delaware in 2011, is slated to open its first off-campus location in Wilmington's main commercial corridor in May – just as spring temperatures move in.

"Opening in time for the spring and summer is definitely intentional," said Melinda Shaw, the creamery's operations manager. "We're hoping that will help the new location be well received, especially once we offer free scoops of ice cream for our grand opening."

An exact date for that grand opening and ice cream giveaway have not yet been set.

First, property owner Buccini-Pollin Group will begin $500,000 worth of renovations to the long-vacant storefront at 815 N. Market St. later this month. That project will coincide with the demolition of the two-story building between the new UDairy location and Chelsea Tavern that will make room for a walkway connecting North Market Street to the $75 million luxury apartment complex called Residences at Mid-Town that BPG is building on North Shipley Street.

"We see UDairy Creamery as a key tenant for our vision of a revitalized Market Street," said BPG co-President Robert Buccini. "The Newark location has an impeccable reputation for high quality, and bringing that to Wilmington will be a huge draw for our existing apartment and office tenants, as well as a destination for people who don't live and work in Wilmington."

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Like the Newark location, the Wilmington ice cream parlor – across the street from the Grand Opera House – will offer a rotating assortment of premium flavors in scoops, pints and half gallons, such as the coffee-and-cookie-dough concoction All Nighter and Holy Fluffernutter, a mix of peanut butter ice cream with chocolate chips and marshmallow fluff swirls.

The larger Market Street shop also will give UDairy Creamery room to expand its offerings with the addition of hamburgers, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, salads and fresh produce, along with other retail items such as honey, yarn and wool blankets.

"Our goal will be to source as many ingredients as we can from the university's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources' farms and organic garden," Shaw said. "That includes the milk in our ice cream and the beef in our burgers."

UD's 100-plus Holstein cows provide the milk used to make the 8 to 10 tons of ice cream produced by UDairy's Newark location each week. The milk is made into an ice cream base by Cumberland Farms in Cumberland, New Jersey, before being sent back to the storefront, where it is flavored and mixed, frozen and packaged by university student-employees.

A portion of that ice cream is sold at the store while some ends up in campus cafeterias. Late last year, the college also began producing ice cream for Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant's 12 locations.

"Our real mission is to educate students more than just making and selling ice cream," Shaw said, referring to the creamery's efforts to expose its student employees to food science and business management practices. University students conducted a BPG-funded feasibility study and developed a business plan for the proposed Wilmington location based on a dozen visits the program's Moo Mobile ice cream truck made to Market Street last spring.

"If you just look at the number of phone calls we got from people asking when we would be coming back, it was clear there was a market for a Wilmington location," Shaw said.

The Market Street shop also will allow the university to open its UDairy Creamery program to students enrolled in the school's Associate in Arts Program. Formerly known as the University Parallel Program, the initiative allows students to earn 60 credits toward an associate degree in Wilmington, Dover and Georgetown that are transferable to bachelor's degree programs at the main campus.

All of the roughly 20 part-time jobs mixing and selling ice cream at the new store will be filled by students taking classes at an Orange Street building the program shares with Delaware Technical Community College.

"These are students who are already on Market Street every day," said David Satran, director of the Associate in Arts Program. "I think having them work there as well could be a real benefit for us and the city by helping to get young people involved and invested in helping to improve downtown."

The new UDairy Creamery Market also will be a capstone in BPG's ongoing efforts to revitalize Wilmington's Market Street corridor. Launched in the mid-1990s, the acquisition, development and management company has invested more than $1 billion in the city over the last decade, ranging from 1,600 apartments, townhouses and condos to numerous restaurants, office buildings and hotels, including, recently, the historic Hotel du Pont.

The addition of UDairy Creamery is expected to be followed by Stitch House Brewery, a brewpub that Locale BBQ Post, and Wilmington Pickling Co. owner Daniel Sheridan will be opening at 829 N. Market St. this summer. The Italian restaurant Ardé Osteria, owned by the operators of DiMeo's Pizzaiuoli Napulianti, also is expected to open on Market Street later this year, now that BPG has won a court fight with former tenants Kennedy Fried Chicken.

"We're trying to collect all the great regional brands and bring them to Wilmington," Buccini said. "Part of that wish list certainly was UDairy Creamery, and I think it's going to be a real feather in our cap."

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.