Marketplace For Park A Fresh Idea

At the north entrance to Riverfront Park, visitors pass the Flour Mill, then walk south across the Spokane River on a wide, barren expanse of asphalt. Now, picture that concrete-railed bridge alive with the color, music and wares of a farmers market.

If this comes to pass, the park will have a new attraction and the Spokane MarketPlace will have a future.

The MarketPlace has grown into a smashing success during the last few years, attracting 300,000 customers and a roster of 160 vendors (an average of 70 vendors per day) to a site at Riverside and Division. The market’s landlord had other goals for the property, unfortunately, and declined to renew its lease. MarketPlace leaders have been searching frantically for another location. With spring and the buying season upon them, they’re hoping for what at least could be an interim home on Riverfront Park’s Howard Street bridge.

Vendors would set up temporary canopies at the sides of the wide bridge, leaving ample room for pedestrian traffic and park vehicles. The MarketPlace, a non-profit organization with a well-proven track record, would pay the park $50 a day in rent and would handle administrative details such as cleanup, power and relations with vendors. The market would operate three days a week - more often if enough vendors appear.

The MarketPlace could gain customers from the new location in the park close to the city center.

With its talented street musicians, produce merchants, ethnic barbecue and baked goods, ethnic crafts and a variety of up-andcoming food entrepreneurs, the market would enhance the diversity of attractions in Riverfront Park.

No one in Spokane, including MarketPlace organizers and certainly those who oversee Riverfront Park, wants this to create any problems for the park.

That’s why the Riverfront Park advisory committee and the Spokane Park Board need public input in addition to their own efforts to anticipate and iron out wrinkles. The city’s Riverfront Park committee will hold a public meeting to discuss the proposal this Monday at 3:30 p.m. in the Park and Recreation Department’s conference room, 7th floor, City Hall. The Park Board plans to discuss the matter next Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in City Council chambers.

The MarketPlace is a community asset, and it deserves a constructive effort to keep it alive. The community will receive a bonus if it permits the market to bring its diversity and charm to a barren portion of Riverfront Park.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board