Planning and design for a new year-round vendor building and event space at Rochester’s Public Market is moving ahead.
The project would replace the C Shed. That is the one on the east side of the market near the Railroad Street entrance and parking lot.
Mayor Malik Evans is asking City Council to OK spending $1 million in federal pandemic relief funds to hire Plan Architectural Studio of Rochester to design the facility.
Plans are to replace the open-air shed built in 1967 with a one-story facility that has overhead doors that could be closed in bad weather. And, at the north end, to erect a two-story building with a rooftop deck and more space for vendors as well as market offices and a second-floor teaching kitchen and classroom.
Construction is likely at least two years off. Funding has yet to be solidified and project costs are estimated at more than $20 million, said market director Jim Farr.
This is an undertaking years in the making.
There is increasing demand from customers and vendors alike to have enclosed space during the winter months, Farr said. Similar demand led the town of Brighton to build a seasonal, indoor market space that opened last winter.
“It’s kind of an equity-based thing, too,” he said, noting that the Rochester market has one of the top single-site SNAP-redemption programs of its kind in the country.
The new spaces would be flexible for other uses, and available for rent.
And tone-story building would operate much like the open-air sheds, with no permanent fixtures (unlike in the other indoor shed, commonly referred to as the winter shed). That would allow vendor stalls to be cleared away, providing an open-floor event space for upwards of 500 people.
“If we wanted to do a garage sale in the wintertime, or somebody wanted to do a trade show, or you could even do a social event or other things in there,” Farr said.
“We get lots and lots of requests for events and meetings and parties and weddings and memorial services and everything else at the market,” he continued. “And we don't really have a functional indoor space that works well for that.”
Rental income from that space and the second floor would help bolster the market’s bottom line and help keep vendor rents low, Farr said.
The push comes as market director Jim Farr says business is finally getting back to normal.
"This is the first year that I'd really say everything is kind of stabilized, and we're seeing growth again in vendors since the pandemic,” Farr said, adding the same goes for customers as longtime vendors "have said they've had some of their best days ever.
“So it's been a good season, and everything we can do to make it more comfortable and convenient for folks, I think, is going to help us.”
The footprint of new versus old structures would be roughly the same, providing a similar 50-60 vendor stalls. City officials considered adapting the existing shed, but found doing so was cost prohibitive.
The small brick building that currently houses market offices at the center plaza could be converted to a store to sell market or city logo merchandise, Farr said.
Meanwhile, a once-envisioned new building near the Union Street entrance that would have enlisted a private developer and included retail storefronts and housing is back on hold — in part because of inflation in the construction market.
