Decatur Farmer’s Market Will Move to Beacon Hill Post-Renovation
Decatur Metro | January 28, 2013
Greg points to this announcement on the Decatur Farmer’s Market website…
The City of Decatur(CoD) and Decatur Farmers Market(DFM) reached a tentative agreement to allow DFM to hold the weekly Wednesday and Saturday market at the redesigned Beacon Hill Complex multipurpose courtyard (see the rendering in the post). The tentative date for the project completion is spring of 2015. We are very excited about this and have been working with the city for years to come up with a suitable long term location to hold the market.
Many thanks to Lena Stevens and Lyn Menne from the CoD for their work on this as well as Duane Marcus (our market manager) and Steve Provost for their site input.
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Hope there’s good parking!
we will have valet parking
Really? A farmer’s market with valet parking? That’s has to be some kind of first.
Valet for cars or bikes?
Park free in the courthouse deck on Saturdays.
Well, that’ll be a long walk! No problem, just sayin’.
Not sure if you’re serious? It will be 650 feet, by my best Google Maps estimate. To repeat – plenty of free parking on Saturday’s 650 feet away.
RWD is probably referencing the distance of the new location relative to her/his domicile.
There will be parking a the site (see site plan), on the street, and at the Maloof Building across the street.
Hope that Calavera Bakery, Simply Scrumptious, Cakes and Ale, the folks with the tamales and salsa, the raspberry jam lady, frozen pasta people, and the stand with the teeny brussel sprouts all make the move over. And to the butter and milk lady: Please come back! Ditto to the Asian Sandwich ladies–every time I come home from DFM, my family asks about them.
Butter and milk lady? I want her to come back too. Anyone know where to buy real buttermilk around here?
Can’t move any sooner?
And maybe Big Daddy will come back.
Parking, schmarking. Will they have growlers?
I’m hoping that the move will improve this market!
Can anyone tell me why the market is NOT in the most completely obvious place (i.e., the square)?
It was previously there on the plaza, but died — at least according to organizers — through low attendance. I think they’ve found that, for success, they need high visibility and an easy way to capture passing traffic.
Lack of parking. Or, more accurately, perception of lack of parking.
Wait a minute. How can the square be the host of seemingly countless number of events – people pack the place for myriad reasons. Why would parking be the downfall to the farmer’s market on the square, when it doesn’t seem to be a problem for all the other events there. Parking seems to be an easy cop-out for anything that “doesn’t work” downtown. And yet, we are held up as Atlanta’s walkable darling. That is, our walkability is our finest asset. I believe the latter. As for parking being a problem, I’m tired of hearing that. If you don’t make it in downtown Decatur, you probably have other issues – lack of parking didn’t cause anyone to fail in Decatur.
My walkable, no shopping carts, buy-in-bulk store will prove you wrong!
Then why didn’t DFM work there, but is flourishing at two other less attractive, less central sites with parking spaces literally next to the market stalls? People have a different mindset about events than they do a farmer’s market. Got me why. I guess they want to drive to be green.
Is the Wednesday market flourishing? East Atlanta Village and Grant Park have done far superior jobs with their markets, thanks largely to cooler locations. The parking is worse at both of them, but they have become destinations.
It didn’t work for the reasons I mentioned before: poor visibility and ease of traffic capture.
I’m asking about the current Wednesday market in the Bank of America parking lot, not the defunct Square market. It doesn’t look to be drawing the kinds of crowds EAV’s Thursday market gets.
I had heard a rumor a few months ago that the folks who manage the Grant Park market would be taking on Decatur. Job one is to get the Wednesday market out of a bank parking lot.
I’ll go with Scott as to why it didn’t work, although I’m not so sure of that either. It could have been a communication problem too. I don’t think the DFM had much mojo, or community recognition, when it was on the square. Maybe it would work there now that it’s more of a known quantity?
The success of so many things on the square seems to prove that parking ain’t a problem. When there is something that people want to come to on the square, people flock to the square. The Beer Festival, the Iberian Pig, the Brick Store, the Beach Party, getting married, etc. etc. aren’t held back by a parking problem.
Festival-goers and grocery shoppers are different. Many of the same people, probably, but wearing different hats with different mindsets in those two different scenarios.
I agree that the Square or Beacon Hill or about anywhere Downtown are walkable with light bags of local produce but I think that most folks are still conditioned to associate food shopping with visible parking, e.g. YDFM, DFM, Morningside Farmer’s Market etc. The other issue is for the vendors who have a lot to haul out at the beginning of every market and haul back at the end of the market, twice a week for some of them, not just once a year.
Also agree with Scott that visibility is an issue. I visited the DFM once or twice early on but never remembered to return. Then one of my kids had a weekly class right by one of the markets for many weeks in a row. That put the market right in my face; I started attending regularly; got hooked on a few items and vendors; and now DFM is on my permanent subconscious radar screen.
Beacon Hill? Sorry but I have only lived here for 20 plus years and have never heard of anything in Decatur with that name. Anyone?
It’s the arts center that shares space with the police department.
http://decatur.patch.com/articles/former-mayor
I left one out:
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM2EJE
Read the historical marker in front of the complex, Trinity Street side.
Ah, Udog has a link,
One plus for the new Beacon Hill location is its proximity to Allen Wilson, Swanton Heights and Gateway – many of those folks rely on cabs, MARTA, or walking to the Baby Kroger for buying groceries.