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Kingsport Farmers Market flourishing in new location

Rebecca Blackberry helps Ray Hunt with his produce selection Wednesday at the Kingsport Farmers Market on Center Street. David Grace photo.

 

KINGSPORT — The Kingsport Farmers Market is blossoming quite well in its new location downtown, with market officials saying they’ve never been this big, this early in the produce-selling season.

For years the farmers market was located in the Shelby Street parking lot behind the Kingsport Public Library, but when work began on the new TriSummit Bank headquarters (at the old AEP building), this forced the market to relocate a block over to Center Street.

All along though the city of Kingsport had been planning to move the farmers market to the old Quebecor facility. This year that move took place, and the market is now located in an open area at the corner of Center and Clinchfield.

Jim LaFollette, president and market manager, said the new location has been a boon for the market.

“We’re averaging around 50 vendors and 2,500 to 3,000 people on Saturdays. We didn’t have 50 vendors all of last year. We’ve never been this big, this early,” LaFollette said. “We’ve got 40 new vendors this year, and these are people who are putting out gardens, trying to supplement some of their income. And we’ve added some different types of vendors, like one who does their own coffee beans.”

Last year the market had at most 45 vendors with the average attendance being 1,500 to 2,000 people.

“And this is not our busiest time. Usually mid-July through mid-August when corn comes in and we’ll have more local grown tomatoes. During that time is the peak produce time for this area,” LaFollette said. “We’ll likely get more crowded next month, probably 3,000 to 4,000 people on Saturday.”

LaFollette said he believes better visibility is what’s driving the increased attendance at the market.

“People are driving through who stop and have never been to the farmers market before. Being on Center Street has helped us out a lot,” he said.

Although the market is seeing greater success this year, the increase in attendance is causing a problem with parking, or rather lack thereof.

Parking exists at the new site, and there are several overflow parking lots nearby — across Clinchfield Street, behind Ward’s Feed Store and on Roller Street. Chris McCartt, assistant to the city manager, said the city is evaluating offering shuttle service to the market beginning later this month.

“The shuttle would run a loop from Clinchfield to Market to Roller and make a loop every five to 10 minutes. We realize some folks have trouble making that walk, and it would be easy to operate a shuttle service,” McCartt said.

City leaders sought to move the market to the Quebecor site for a number of reasons — it would fit well with the redevelopment of the property and would give the market more space and more visibility. In fact, the city would ultimately like to move the market indoors and have an open-air market, using all of the current location as parking.

“We are in the process of moving forward with some demolition (at the site). We’ve done some interior demolition already, identifying more asbestos in the facility, and we’re in the process of having it removed,” McCartt said. “In the winter we will work to try and get some stuff installed to help the market for its spring opening and hopefully have (the market indoors) sometime in April or May.”

The farmers market is open on Wednesdays and Saturday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., May through October.

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The market is a wonderful addition to that corner. I see vendors there through the week as well as Saturday. Keep it up guys, it is nice to have fresh home grown options for food.

Concerned Citizen | 7/4/2009 - 9:06 AM - (Suggest Removal )

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