Starksboro farmer Hank Bissell set up shop on October 20 on the same corner of Burlington’s City Hall Park that he’s occupied every warm-weather Saturday for three decades. Passersby, tugging their dogs on leashes and carrying bags of leafy greens, stopped to view his Lewis Creek Farm’s special — beets for $1.50 a pound — and the potatoes, cauliflower, peppers and 10 kinds of pickles he had on display. A trio played bluegrass tunes nearby, and a toddler danced, shuffling through yellow leaves that littered the ground.
Such scenes, typical of the Burlington Farmers Market, won’t play out in the park next year.
The market, a nonprofit organization led by a vendors’ steering committee and two employees, is hunting for a new home as the City of Burlington moves forward with plans to upgrade the downtown green space. The summer-months staple must relocate during renovations, which the city plans to begin next spring and which should take at least a year.
But just six months before the crowds are to return for the next outdoor market, organizers aren’t yet certain what the future holds, or where its vendors, mostly small farmers, will sell their crops.
“They’re frustrated, and they’re scared,” said Chris Wagner, the organization’s executive director.
The market’s leaders have been laboring under the impression that if and when the market returns to City Hall Park, it would be drastically smaller. After initial discussions with city officials, market leaders believed the new park would accommodate just 63 vendors, compared to the 93 that hawked their wares there this year, Wagner said. Even then, those invited back would have to shrink the size of their stalls, Wagner feared.
Late last week, Mayor Miro Weinberger called a meeting to reassure the market that would not be the case.
“I think we’re going to emerge on the other side with a park and a farmers market that’s stronger than ever,” Weinberger said of the renovation. He called the market “one of the magical parts of Burlington summer” and said he planned to keep it that way. “If we need to address some questions … that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
The market’s member vendors will discuss those questions at a November 5 meeting and weigh in on whether to move the weekly event, temporarily at least, to a dirt parking lot owned by Dealer.com along Pine Street in the city’s South End. The market’s steering committee will decide the question by mid-November, Wagner said.
The move would change the vibe of the market, which has become a melting pot of shoppers and an economic driver for the city, said Bissell. At City Hall Park, “people come, and they want to hang out,” he said. “You get [a farmers market] in a hot parking lot, there’s a reason no one’s going there. It’s miserable.”
Bissell nonetheless supports the move, believing that it’s the best option for the farmers and for the city — for now.
The market has been a downtown Burlington institution for nearly 40 years, ever since a couple of AmeriCorps volunteers and a half dozen farmers who wanted to sell their vegetables founded it in 1980, according to Wagner. It’s operated in City Hall Park since 1982.
The gathering of growers started small. Since Wagner started working for the market in 2006, the number of vendors has tripled as younger people have taken up farming and the locavore movement has burgeoned, he said. Attendance has also risen, Wagner said: Volunteers counted 10,000 visitors during one summer day in 2016.
On November 10, with this summer’s season over, the market moves to its winter locale at the University of Vermont’s Dudley H. Davis Center. Smaller crowds and shortened hours make for a smaller affair during the colder months; the outdoor summer market resumes in May.
It’s earned accolades from afar. The Daily Meal, a food website, ranked the market 15th on its 2017 list of the country’s top farmers markets. Another website, UrbanDaddy, counted the Queen City alongside Fez, Morocco, and Hanoi, Vietnam, as one of the most underrated food cities in the world — and specifically highlighted the farmers market.
Its location, just off of Church Street, has helped the market grow in prominence and boosted the city’s locavore vibe. In an internal survey, 80 percent of vendors called City Hall Park the key to the market’s success, according to Wagner.
City officials have considered renovating the park since 2011. The soil has gotten compacted, and well-trodden bare spots run along its sidewalks. The park has been “loved to death,” David White, the director of planning and zoning, has said.
The proposed redesign, which would cost $3 million, includes a new fountain, wider walkways, a bathroom and a permanent kiosk. The renovations are supposed to start in the spring of 2019. But a citizens’ group, Keep the Park Green, is trying to stall the effort, protesting that too many trees would be cut down. They’re collecting signatures for an advisory Town Meeting Day ballot item that would ask voters to halt the project entirely. Regardless of any results, Weinberger said, he intends to pursue the makeover.
The uncertainty is nothing new to Wagner — or to the market. It’s operated with one-year leases for the past four years, because the park’s renovation has been up in the air. In the meantime, market leaders investigated alternative sites, Wagner said.
He and the market’s board president, Spencer Welton, co-owner of Half Pint Farm in Burlington’s Intervale, examined 17 potential sites, including several parks, private lots and even a field by Interstate 189.
All posed challenges, Wagner said. More than three consecutive Saturdays at the waterfront would require a change to the city’s Act 250 permit. Battery Park couldn’t accommodate unloading for vendors and parking for customers. Oakledge Park floods when it rains.
Market organizers settled on the lot along Pine Street. The location isn’t as convenient, but there are perks, Wagner said. While the market pays the city $15,000 annually for its use of City Hall Park, Pine Street property owner Dealer.com will charge just $60 for the year. There’s room for 120 vendors and plenty of parking.
The vendors on the market’s steering committee will vote in November on whether to commit to the site, even though the city can’t guarantee it will have shovels in the ground next summer. Wagner is pushing for approval. “It’s time for us to be proactive rather than reactive,” he said.
City decisions have already affected the market. It had to leave its winter home in Memorial Auditorium after the city’s downtown building was condemned in 2016, and it relocated to UVM. The city is considering redeveloping the auditorium. The farmers market was also a central part of the plan to redevelop the old Moran Plant on the Lake Champlain waterfront. That fell through last year.
“It is hard to have no real home and to have no real say where our home will end up being,” said Welton. “We are at the whim of the city’s plans, and we’ve got to make our own way in the interim without a ton of help.” He said he hopes for more “support and appreciation and communication” with city officials.
Interviews by Seven Days suggest communication with the city has been poor. Wagner and many vendors believed that the new park configuration would restrict space the market now uses, should it return.
Less than 24 hours after Seven Days requested an interview with Mayor Weinberger and other city officials regarding the market, the mayor reached out to Wagner. Weinberger reiterated his support for the market and vowed that any reduction in space would be minor, according to Wagner. That, he said, was a surprise.
Weinberger also said that the market could return to City Hall Park after one year. Some city departments had previously indicated that the park would be off-limits for two years, according to Wagner and other market officials.
“Some details have to be ironed out,” Weinberger acknowledged to Seven Days.
That’s not good enough for the farmers who stand to lose out.
“We’re talking about … 100 different businesses that are all mom-and-pop that all rely on this to make a living, and it’s up in the air,” said Kyle Doda, the owner of 1000 Stone Farm in Brookfield.
Doda thinks the city should be more supportive because the market brings revenue to nearby businesses and gathers the community together. “Our clientele is all ages, all races, all ethnicities,” he said.
Meanwhile, the market vendors have been bracing for what they thought would be an inevitable 30 percent reduction of stands should the market return to a rebuilt park. The seniority system means the newest vendors, including Doda, would be the first to go.
If such a scenario did play out, Jonathan Wagner — no relation to Chris — and his Bear Roots Farm would be cut. Wagner sells his produce at the farmers market in Montpelier and through a CSA but said he makes roughly half of his income at the Burlington market.
He and his wife had bought another piece of land recently, assuming they could count on the revenues from the vegetables they sell in Burlington. “For us personally, [losing the market stand] could make things unsustainable,” he said.
Chris Wagner said he thinks the organization has had plenty of support from the city. He sees Weinberger making the rounds every Saturday. “There’s no doubt the community loves the market,” he said.
Still, Wagner acknowledged he would need to work harder to draw people to the Pine Street location. If it’s chosen, he plans to run advertising and might pay for a shuttle for those in the Old North End or senior living facilities who would not be able to walk to the market.
Wagner was hesitant to commit to returning to the downtown park.
“We just want the renovations to happen,” he said. “Then we can look at that space and decide: Is this the best spot for the farmers market?”
So, how big will the market be after next year — and where will the tents sprout?
“I honestly don’t know,” Wagner said.
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This article appears in Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2018.
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There’s a big empty lot between Bank and Cherry Streets that seems to be available.
When it comes to big developers the Mayor will spend countless hours of his and city staff time to make sure those developers are treated well – change zoning, sell city assets to them, etc.
When it comes to anyone who isnt rich and wealthy, whether it be local farmers, local social workers and teachers, low-income advocates, etc, they have to beg for the Mayor to even look their way.
Its as if Mayor Weinberger is first and foremost beholden to all those folks that give him thousands every election cycle over regular folks who dont own $1,000,000 homes…
I have an idea – why not use a section of the 220 acre Burlington Country Club, which constitutes nearly 10% of all buildable land in Burlington, currently reserved for Vermonts wealthiest 10%, many of whom dont even live in Burlington, as the site for the Farmers Market.
http://charleswinkleman.com/2018/03/17/is-…
Then, eminent domain the land (only valued at $6 million!) and build low-income housing since we seem to have a particularly bad low-income housing problem in this city, to the point where Mayor Weinberger told me on the record he would rather some poor person pay full market-rate rent to live in a slum than have even one Slumlord lose their rental license.
If Farrell can fit 700 units of housing on only 12 acres of land, imagine how much housing could be build even on just 100 or 50 acres!
Imagine a city where everyone had a home and the wealthy could not segregate themselves from their workers and the poor by using zoning laws and 300 acre elite country clubs to protect themselves from the masses!
Pine St will be a disaster, even if only for a year. Talk about the middle of nowhere! I know I personally wouldn’t bother with the hassle.
Just like folks thought we would never lose First Night, the Farmers Market is no guarantee. I blame many parties but especially the city that came to the attention late, and to build what resembles a corporate plaza for our historic city park district. I don’t see the market coming out of this stronger. Ironically a winter market success at a renovated Memorial seems a better possibility, but really nothing on the horizon for a truly effective summer market.
why not battery park
Soon the Farmers Market will be able to use the Big Hole in the middle of DownTown ……..
How utterly shocking that it’s more important for the Mayor to ram through a redesign that will not only kill City Hall Park’s soul, but also a vibrant farmers’ market that benefits everyone. And what for? Gentrification at all costs, I guess.
We have to vote this guy out, decisively, next time he’s up for re-election.
The term “upgrade” City Hall park is a misnomer , it really is a downgrade, it is a sterilization of downtown. More BS from the mayor.
I keep telling you, folks . . real estate developers should be kept away from the levers of power, whether on a local or national level. They see everything as a commodity to be extracted from so they can bask in their own personal glory.
“More BS from the mayor.”
More BS from the anti-everything crowd.
The farmers market managment have raped the downtown for too long! I say beat it. You can leave 10 veggie farmers but all the food has gotta go!
Miro wineburger sucks! So does this pathetic gossip rag of a newspaper.
The farmers market is more of a food festival with farmers. I say beat it! The mis-management of the market has overgrown its welcome and trampled the park in the process. Seems to me the greed of market management is catching up with them!
The farmers market can stand to be trimmed a little. It has been infiltrated with expensive art, weird products like chaga tea and liquor, and goofballs using it popularity to make political points. Trim some of the fat and get back to being a farmers market.
PS–the same can be said for the writing of this article. Trim some of the fat and deliver the story.
I do not like what the city wants to do with City Hall Park- Not only because of the number of trees proposed being cut down, but taking away much of its green spaces and sense of a place to rest, at lunch time or during the day. I happen to like the historic fountain that was put there in 1910. Or at least was created then. Farmers Market is something my husband and I look forward to every week. We meet friends there have made a number of friends with farmers and feel that it is an important part of the heartbeat of Burlington. My experience of what the city would like is to essentially take that heartbeat away. No place to go to rest, sit and have quiet. I do think this is driven by fear, and a desire to make Burlington just like Boston or NYC.
As the article notes, there is a move to put on the ballot an advisory resolution on whether to halt plans for the City Hall Park $4 million “improvement” — which will actually not just result in some 20 additional trees being cut, but will destroy the historic character of the park, substantially increasing paved surfaces, while replacing the central fountain with a series of water jets placed on a very large paved expanse.
Keep the Park Green and others are in the process of collecting the nearly 2,000 signatures from registered Burlington voters needed for this advisory resolution to get on the March ballot — a very challenging task in a small city like Burlington. Yet Mayor Weinberger appears to say, according to the article, that he will ignore the results of any ballot resolution and just plow ahead with his costly plans for “improving” City Hall Park. Maybe he can legally do this. But that’s not what local democracy should look like.
The planned boondoggle City Hall Park redesign does not just interfere with the Farmers Market.
The approved plan for the park lacks common sense. It rips out several of the existing walkways and replaces them with walkways located just a few feet to side of where the walkways are now–aiming at where mature and healthy trees lining that side now stand. Moving the existing walkways to the side requires a dozen beautiful mature and healthy trees to be cut down. All this moving of walkways and cutting trees at $4 million cost to the city! Why? When most of what is needed is ordinary maintenance and to aerate the soil with a machine the city already owns so grass will grow, tree health improve, and rain water will be better retained!
And what is the purpose of paving over more of our sole city center green space? This is a plan that needs to be stopped in its tracks.
The planned park redesign degrades a gem of a City Hall Park that has character and charm. Surely the real purpose of the redesign is to pass $4 million of city money to developers.
Let’s keep the existing walkways and pave no more. And save millions of dollars. Yes we can.
If we join together here in Burlington the proposed big metro design will be defeated at the polls in March in a ballot item, and the farmers’ market allowed to continue (with some changes to reflect sensitivity to the Park ecology) while a more sensible “preservation” approach design (likely less expensive!) is developed. That plan needs to incorporate a workable long term farmers’ market, perhaps with emphasis on farmers! Tony Redington Burlington
The Farmers Market is a valued community event, but the City of Burlington has mismanaged it to the detriment of City Hall Park and the health of its grass, soil, and trees.
Now the city wants to spend millions to refurbish the park — pretending that its suffering from old age rather than willful neglect — and imagining that the community prefers a plaza-like park with more pavement and fewer trees in the middle of a downtown otherwise thoroughly dominated by concrete and asphalt.
The most important design decisions for the current plan, notably the lack of consideration for existing healthy mature trees, were made behind closed doors. Furthermore, interest in the design work was neither solicited nor put out to bid. Just how the chosen firm was chosen is unclear.
A Seven Days article in April suggested that more than half a million dollars (about $700,000) has been spent already and actual site work has yet to begin.
Meanwhile, the adjacent sidewalks on the park perimeter are in hazardous disrepair and the proposed splash pad in the new design will be dysfunctional at this latitude for the bulk of the year.
As with other even bigger budget projects, here too the city does not have its act together.
If you have not signed the petition to put the park redesign on the ballot in March, please do.
Lets let the voters have their say. Our mayor seems to have promised not to listen, but that’s all the more reason for people to stand and speak up.
It will be a travesty if the Farmer’s Market no longer has access to a central and easy-to-access location like City Hall Park. It is a very vibrant part of summer life in Burlington as well as a huge attraction for tourists which is easy to find in its current locale but certainly won’t be if forced to relocate to some non-descript, out of the way parking lot.
Miro Weinberger doesn’t care much for civic engagement, does he? He didn’t want to hear from us on the F-35s and he doesn’t want to hear from us on the park. This tinpot dictator has got to go or this town will be paved over and our historic buildings pulled down to benefit contractors. Hey, Mr Mayor, where’s our boondoggle new mall?
I said back before the elections that Miro had to be voted out but apparently people thought he was doing a great job. Apparently he isn’t doing to good of one, he got the city to have Don the con to build the new mall, he wants to destroy the park, he’s not helping the homeless people like he promised. Anyone have other ideas what he’s not doing or doing to destroy Burlington?
“Miro Weinberger doesn’t care much for civic engagement, does he? He didn’t want to hear from us on the F-35s and he doesn’t want to hear from us on the park. This tinpot dictator has got to go or this town will be paved over and our historic buildings pulled down to benefit contractors. Hey, Mr Mayor, where’s our boondoggle new mall?”
On every single issue you complain about, there has been plenty of “civic engagement.” Years of committees, neighborhood planning associations, council meetings, elections, etc. When you don’t get your way on anything, you blame it on lack of “civic engagement” by the mayor, rather than the fact that your side of the issue didn’t win the day with the public and its elected officials. It’s ridiculous.
RE: your article about moving the farmers market because of City’s plan to mall/maul City Hall Park.
It’s not a done deal.
Last Tuesday Keep the Park Green collected almost 2000 signatures to put on the March ballot a motion to scrap the plan for City Hall Park. I myself collected 125 signatures in three hours at the Ward 4 polling site. For many people who signed the petition it was not just about saving trees. They questioned the 4 million dollar price tag, the need for a “splash pad,” instead of a central fountain, increasing the paved surface area in the park, and wiring it for more performances. They wanted peace and quiet and a green place with shade trees and gardens in the midst of an all to rapidly developing downtown. Parents commented that there was no place to take kids when they were downtown; they wanted a little playground on sawdust with a swing set and slide, and a bathroom, not a portpotty cubicle. Senior signatories wanted benches with backs, not stone blocks to sit on. I was collecting signatures right next to where Kurt Wright greeted voters. He saw the line at my table, and overheard discussions. I asked him, “Kurt, what will the Council do when voters say no?” He said he’d certainly look at another plan.
So take heed FM venders and Burlington Voters. This unpopular plan is not a done deal. We’ll be voting on it in March. And it will go down.
Battery park is the best option for this market , it’s got most of what i’ve heard people wanting , play ground for kids, bathrooms , paved path across front , beautiful views , electric , shade , lawn not gravel , come on people use what you have , can work out loading and unloading , close to church st , parking , with maybe a small shuttle , what more do you want or need ? it’s a win win situation