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Boston Public Market moves forward - yay!
By redheadGrrlie on Tue, 03/20/2012 - 8:52am
The city is moving ahead with it's plans to put a year-round, indoor, multiple independent vendor Public Market in Downtown Boston. Having lived in a city(Portland, ME) with a dedicated indoor market similar to the proposal for this one, I'll say, I can't be more excited to see this come to fruition.
http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-19/yourtown/312...
I really hope that the managing company of this one doesn't fall prey to some of the same unfortunate snowballs that ours did - the high rents drove some founding vendors out, the rents made the produce/product prices go up to cover overhead, the rise in prices drove potential customers away.
*crossing my fingers and waiting for the next report*
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Comments
Now THIS is what I considered a world class market...
http://www.dekalbfarmersmarket.com/
Far and away one of the coolest places in the entire Atlanta metropolitan area.
I don't think the venue here in Boston is nearly large enough to match the DFM.
We *already* have an indoor
We *already* have an indoor public market that drove out long-term tenants with high rents: Quincy Market.
It's too bad it was turned into a shopping mall, instead of preserving and updating it as a food market, like Pike Place in Seattle or the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.
My thoughts EXACTLY
No kidding....why not just make Quincy Market back into Quincy Market.
This will fail
This just screams failure, or costs that will become a burden on the tax payers of this state.
There have been reports all across the US (one such in Cleveland, OH), where it costs more to operate than its bringing in in rents. Either high rents, frustrated vendors, or both.
Plus Winter has a lot to be desired around here. Go to a Farmers Market (i.e. Copley or Kendall) in January and see how many vendors are there? Like TWO. So this place is suppose to rake in enough money during the summer months to support it during the winter months.
Of course to appease the veggie-crew here in town, this will drag on and on and die a horrific, tax paying costing, death. All because they dragged out its closing for months/years after a nail should have put into this coffin prior.
And add the fact that its RIGHT NEXT TO the Haymarket 'market' Fridays and Saturdays. Tell me.. where are you going to go? Pay 4.99/lb for "local" tomatoes or 1.50 for two pounds of non-local tomatoes. The answer is obvious.
I've been pretty vocal about this place on here, in the current economic state, we cannot.. as tax payers.. continue to fund such boondoggle ideas such as this. Look I'm all for fresh fruits and veggies, but why should my tax dollars be spent on this right now.. not when fire fighters and fire stations are being closed, school budgets are tight, our roads are a mess? I really think we should re-evaluate this kind of spending in this current economic state. Sure, if some PRIVATE ENTITY wants to rent the space from DartCo and fund it themselves, sure, maybe the city can fast track permits, but I'll be damned if we spend any tax money on this.
I think you might be right
What makes the "farmers markets" and similar things work is the low overhead of putting up a stand and selling stuff. Putting this indoors into a new space just works against that entirely.
It doesn't have to
I think someone already mentioned Pike Place Market; it has opportunities for people to start out with a reasonably priced table before they make it to the point of being able to rent out a store. In high school I had friends who sold hemp jewelry and candles and things they'd made, flowers they'd grown, etc. This sort of thing continues, and it's certainly accessible to hobbyists/small-business owners and not just people who have a large business.
Pike Place is subsidized somewhat, though I'm not sure to what extent, and the website isn't totally clear on this. I do know though that there's a "Friends of the Market" group that does fundraisers, volunteer work to spruce the place up and educate the public about the importance of keeping it going. I remember in the '80s when they sold floor tiles with an engraved message as part of a revitalization.
If we ended up with a
If we ended up with a Pike Place that would certainly be counted a success. But Pike Place started off as a private venture, IIRC, and it is definitely not a "new space". That helps keep the costs down a lot.
Requiring subsidies to operate just means that Menino and other paternalistic bureaucrats just get to review and potentially reject any shops that want to open up in the market. Good for a suburban mall, not so much for a city.
Probably not.
You pretty clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
This just screams failure, or costs that will become a burden on the tax payers of this state.
There have been reports all across the US (one such in Cleveland, OH), where it costs more to operate than its bringing in in rents. Either high rents, frustrated vendors, or both.
Like so many other services you avail yourself of every day, this doesn't have to (and isn't intended to) turn a profit for the city. That's been made clear from the first proposal.
Plus Winter has a lot to be desired around here. Go to a Farmers Market (i.e. Copley or Kendall) in January and see how many vendors are there? Like TWO. So this place is suppose to rake in enough money during the summer months to support it during the winter months.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that you've never set foot in a farmer's market, much less one during the winter. Try the indoor one in the South End some time! It's still March, so there isn't much local produce yet, but there's still plenty of cellar vegetables, hothouse produce, and meat/honey/pasta/maple-syrup vendors who aren't seasonal. They're almost overflowing the space they have, and that's before there's actually any local produce ripe.
Of course to appease the veggie-crew here in town, this will drag on and on and die a horrific, tax paying costing, death. All because they dragged out its closing for months/years after a nail should have put into this coffin prior.
If the local produce movement triggers your 'insidious lefty plot' alarm, you may have picked the wrong state to live in.
And add the fact that its RIGHT NEXT TO the Haymarket 'market' Fridays and Saturdays. Tell me.. where are you going to go? Pay 4.99/lb for "local" tomatoes or 1.50 for two pounds of non-local tomatoes. The answer is obvious.
The city is full of people who would happily pay the $5/lb premium for local tomatoes. Some of us view the $.75/lb Monsanto-spawned pesticide-bathed wholesaler-overflow produce for sale at Haymarket the same way that we view $5 'gently used' mattresses for sale on Craigslist.
I've been pretty vocal about this place on here, in the current economic state, we cannot.. as tax payers.. continue to fund such boondoggle ideas such as this. Look I'm all for fresh fruits and veggies, but why should my tax dollars be spent on this right now.. not when fire fighters and fire stations are being closed, school budgets are tight, our roads are a mess? I really think we should re-evaluate this kind of spending in this current economic state. Sure, if some PRIVATE ENTITY wants to rent the space from DartCo and fund it themselves, sure, maybe the city can fast track permits, but I'll be damned if we spend any tax money on this.
Good thing you can voice your opinion on how municipal dollars are spent, by contacting your elected officials to voice your displeasure, or by voting them out if you and enough of your fellow malcontents are unhappy with their decisions! Meanwhile, I wish you many happy years in the libertarian paradise that I am sure you are busily constructing as an alternative to this grim farmer's dystopia.
Boondoggle.
I've just grown tired of this state wasting money on these boondoggle priorities just to appease to a small number of people. This state wastes so much money trying to 'spur' development its not funny. If there's such a need, why wasn't one been built yet? If there's a need, commercial enterprise will see the need and build it. My tax dollars should not fund this sort of venture. Let private enterprise decide this, not public. Obvious private venture has decided that there is no such need and will not build it.
I should also say that I grew up in a farming community in New Hampshire. I KNOW how this stuff works, and frankly, IMHO after knowning what it costs to grow this crap, anything inside a Farmer's Market is OVERPRICED to the point where people are just being taken advantage of. Sorry if you cannot accept that truth in the matter that Farmers Markets are overpriced, unless you're driving around rural New Hampshire and are buying it right AT the farm, you have some serious issues. And if you shop there, you are just as sheeple as the rest of them and enjoy paying far too much for produce.
But I stand by my comments. State or city budget money should not be used in this matter. There's zippo Libertarian View about it. Why should my tax dollars fund a commercial enterprise?!? Again, if the commercial enterprise says there's a need, then let THEM do it, or make the whole damn thing a Non Profit and do fund raising so the people who really want this market can fund it. Not the rest of the tax payers who will never set foot inside the place. And yes I am 100% right about Cleveland's farmers market, its doomed. Micheal Moore's facts DO check out, and he's 100% correct, its doomed and costing the city millions every year just to keep it open because 'a small number of people want it to stay open'. Close the thing and call it a day, stop wasting tax payers money.
And please, care to actually answer my question.. how is this more important that fire and police protection? Or fixing overcrowding schools? Or our pot hole ridden roads, or hell.. fixing the T for that matter? Why does this project take priority over any of that stuff?
A state commission voted
I can't wait to get those Massachusetts-grown asparagus and sweet peppers in February.
Interesting
I like the idea; my own hallucinations (hey it's only 2 days post Irish Christmas) have this as kind of a cross between Pike Place market in Seattle and Chelsea Markets in NYC. It is a smaller space than both of those. Not sure what to envision inside, really. Especially since some (most?) of the produce at Haymarket is wholesalers, not actual farmers.
Could be totally great!
Whatever, all these nay-saying fools can just move aside. I also used to live in Portland, when the big market was there. It actually sustained me through high school, and helped my little 16 year old mind become totally intriguied by farming and local food production. It wasn't just about selling local produce, it was mostly about locally produced sustainable foods, and had tons of delicious food, from bread to sushi to Ice cream. Also mark it that that place was waaaaay too big and nice, I'm not surprised it went under. A smaller version now exists in a smaller space around the corner.
Has anyone been to the Somerville winter farmers market in the winter? It's full of vendors and customers! Local bread, cheese, and other (minimally) processed foods, along with local winter veggies and produce from local farms that transport food from the south from small farms there. It's a fabulous model! (I'm not sure how it's funded, unfortunately).
Don't act so down in the dumps! Maybe this bed market would someday become another Quincy market, but if so, then it's just because that's what the customer demands and the market owners allow. A successful local year round market is totally possible, technically and fiscally, in Boston.
As long as I'm not financially destitute, I will always pay more for locally produced organic tomatoes than for tomatoes grown by people notpayed enough to expose themselves to deadly and neurotoxin pesticides.and food made with that produce. But that's just coming from someone who gas studied agriculture and food systems and community based urban ag extensively, so nevermind me!
I shop at the Somerville winter farmers' market
and it's usually jampacked. Last year it ran 3 months, 4 hours each Saturday. This year it's going for 7 months, 5 hours each Saturday. This despite having limited parking and being far from any T station.
Somerville Winter Market Rocks
LOVE going there! My only complaint is it can be crazy crowded. I actually waited nearly a half hour in line to buy some root vegetables once. Yeah, they're that good. I feel lucky to live near the Somerville Winter Market, and feel bad for those who don't have such access. Folks are missing out!