Marketing A New Location Marketplace Business Steadily Growing At New Site Just East Of The Flour Mill

The Spokane MarketPlace, evicted from its downtown home last year, is slowly rebounding at its new riverside turf.

Many of the vendors are the same, but the personality of the city’s public market has changed.

Instead of a gritty pit stop at the bustling corner of Riverside and Division, the market is now an out-of-the-way string of canopied booths in a serene slice of city park on the north bank of the Spokane River - just east of the Flour Mill.

Market customers have changed, too. The market no longer snags rubbernecking drivers. It survives on Riverfront Park strollers and the few people who know where it is.

Even the centerpiece of the old market is gone. Now the only trace of Billy Bob’s Produce at the new location is a hand-painted sign touting the new address of the popular fruit and vegetable stand.

For many merchants, the abrupt move was accompanied by an exasperating wait for old customers to find them.

“It’s like starting over again,” said Chrys Ostrander, selling gourmet salads and vegetables Saturday over the banner “The Green Grocer.”

“We had built up a customer base. I was over there for four years and building a business. I feel like I’ve got to build all over again.”

Ostrander called the new setting beautiful, but hard to give directions to - just east of the Flour Mill, or just south of Mallon and Riverside, or kitty-corner to the new arena, or right next to the broken metal butterfly from the World’s Fair.

“It’s a lot less simple than Riverside and Division,” Ostrander said.

The market thrived last summer in its fourth season at the old produce warehouse. The market had originally leased its location from the city for $10 a year. That sweet deal died when the property was bought by the Joint Center for Higher Education.

The public market was evicted in part because it was getting too popular, clogging surrounding free-parking lots.

Most people who drive right up to the market now have to pay $2 to park.

Charlie Rising Sun was trying to sell moccasins, dream catchers, feathers, trade beads and more from the last in the line of market booths Saturday.

“Nobody knows where it’s at,” Rising Sun said of the new market, estimating his business is half what it was last year.

Jackie Rappe, director of the Spokane MarketPlace, is not discouraged. She said business is building steadily since the market opened May 6.

There were about 80 vendors last year at Riverside and Division. There are about 50 now along the river. There is also more of a crafts focus.

Shoppers can now buy Kenyan batiks and carvings, spices from Tanzania, herbal soaps, earrings and more, along with the vegetables, fruit, breads and hot meals served by Bodacious Buffalo, Side Wok and Lylos.

The market charges $25 a day for a canopied booth. The city of Spokane gets a 15 percent cut of those proceeds, about $1,000 a month.

After an hour of good business, Ostrander, the organic farmer who misses his old customers, sounded far more upbeat. “This is the best day I’ve had here yet.”

The market is open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will also be open Monday and Tuesday this coming week.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos; Map of Spokane MarketPlace location