Farmer’s Market Finds New Home Marketplace Signs Lease On Former Auto Showroom
After years of shopping for permanent digs, the Spokane MarketPlace is finally carving out a new home.
On Thursday, officials announced what has been expected for months: The MarketPlace signed a lease with Cowles Publishing Co. to rent a former automobile showroom on Sprague and Jefferson for up to six years.
“I feel almost as nervous and excited as before getting married and before the first child was born,” said Jackie Rappe, director of the MarketPlace, the nonprofit corporation that manages the farmer’s market. “We’ve been waiting for so long to have a place to call home.”
After being evicted from its Riverside and Division spot in 1994, the farmer’s market moved to an out-of-the-way place in Riverfront Park near the Flour Mill. Revenue dropped. Dozens of vendors stopped coming. The market nearly folded.
Thursday’s announcement is another step in the West First neighborhood’s drive to move from a crime haven to a safe business area. Police also announced this week that video cameras have been installed in the neighborhood, once the scene of drive-by shootings, drug dealing and prostitution.
The market is scheduled to open June 7. The initial lease will be for one year, but it is renewable for up to five years.
“We have worked diligently over the past year to help improve conditions in the West First Avenue area,” said Douglas Osborn, director of operations for Cowles Publishing. “Making this building available is another step to that end.”
The lease amount for the former auto showroom was not released by the MarketPlace or by Cowles Publishing, which owns The Spokesman-Review.
The market will be open on Wednesdays and Fridays through Sundays. In the beginning, space will be available for up to 30 vendors, from artisans to farmers. Eventually the market may hold a half-dozen anchor tenants and more than 60 vendors.
Police hope the $30,000 surveillance camera system will make prospective shoppers feel safe in the once-beleaguered area.
The system - paid for by local merchants and federal taxpayer money - includes seven video cameras set up between Monroe and Cedar, and Sprague and Fourth.
The cameras, which run 24 hours a day, are connected to a series of monitors and videocassette recorders at the neighborhood’s police substation.
Three of the cameras swivel and tilt for wider views. They also can zoom in on drug deals and other illegal activities.
One of the cameras is wireless and sends images through a microwave transmitter. Neighborhood Resource Officer Rick Albin said it can be moved to any trouble spots within a two-mile radius of the West First substation.
“If the drug dealing moves, we’re going to follow it,” Albin said. “We want the drug dealers and other people who come down here to commit crimes to know that we’re watching them.
“We want the public to know that this is a safe place to visit.”
, DataTimes