Stakeholders hash out future of City Market

The future of downtown Charlottesville’s City Market is an unclear picture. Vendors from the April-November farmers market met with students from the University of Virginia’s Jefferson Public Citizens program, Market Central — a nonprofit made up of vendors and patrons of the market — and the public Sunday to discuss the gathering’s future.

Three UVa students — second-year Erica Stratton, third-year Natalie Roper and graduate student Carla Jones — presented the results from a survey they conducted over seven weeks this past summer.

Beginning July 23, the three students asked every seventh person to pass their tent at the market to fill out a survey. The survey found that nearly 5,000 people a week visit the market. Of the 400 participants in the survey, the students determined that 35 percent of them consider “local” food to be from within a 100-mile radius. According to the survey results, patrons of the market spend an average of $21 to $30 per visit.

For some vendors, though, that ring is a little too wide.

Mark Reynolds, who owns and operates Reynolds Grassland Natural, a free-range meat company, said the City Market does not currently have a limit on where food can come from. Imposing a limit on how far away vendors can be from Charlottesville could help keep the market’s local feel alive and well, Reynolds said.

“I believe everybody ought to be doing as much as they can locally,” he said. Reynolds warned that shopping at chains and ignoring local produce will eventually kill small farms.

“People keep doing that and pretty soon they all close,” he said.

Laura Dollard, a vendor from Keene’s Broomfield Farm, said Market Central should take measures to ensure that vendors at the market are indeed producing what they sell. At least in name, Dollard said, the market is producer-only, which means vendors aren’t supposed to sell things they haven’t raised.

“A few years back, the market sent out someone to verify that you are growing what you sell,” Dollard said. “I don’t think it needs to be Gestapo, but it might be a good idea to do that again.”

Holly Hammond, of Whisper Hill Farm in Sperryville, said whether the market is producer-only is less important than making sure customers understand what they’re buying. If something a vendor is selling was bought wholesale, she said, there should be signage or a tag to let customers know.

“If you’re going to say producer-only, there needs to be more enforcement, but if you aren’t, that’s fine but have a sign up that says where it came from … Because the customers deserve that,” Hammond said.

Reynolds suggested there may be ways to make the market even more local, citing Farmville’s farmers market as an example.

“Farmville just put $700,000 into their farmers market, and you have to be from an adjoining county to be a vendor,” Reynolds said, adding that he is disappointed he can’t sell his goods in Farmville now, but that he understands the move.

“I don’t like it, but I appreciate it,” he said.

Gary Okerlund, who sits on the Market Central board, said Sunday’s meeting was designed to guide the process of moving the City Market forward. The next step, he said, is to finalize the City Market District Alliance, which will decide on a final designs and goals for the market, and advocate for the project. Okerlund said there isn’t a concrete design objective yet.

“The vision has to come out of all this,” he said. “That’s what these sessions are for.”

Stratton said she and the other students will continue to do research about the market through the winter.

“At some point during the winter, we’d like to do a vendor survey and then work on issues of accessibility,” Stratton said.

The meeting was held at CitySpace on the Downtown Mall and was attended by about 30 people.