The Sackville Farmers Market made the move to its new winter location on Lorne Street this past Saturday. During the week, the former Kookie Kutter building is home to the Sackville Commons co-working space, but every Saturday from 9am to noon, it will host the 26+ vendors that make up the Sackville Farmers’ Market.
“As usual, we are an indoor/outdoor market,” said market manager Michael Freeman last week. “Some of our larger vendors, like Portage Pork Plus, Dixon’s Farm Fresh Beef, Essers European Style Bakery, and the coffee truck, Deus Ex Macina, will all be outside. We’re going to have a couple of farmers as well that are outside.”
The majority of the vendors–18 of them–will be cozy on the inside of the new space.
The new indoor Lorne Street market does have COVID-19 protocols in place, similar to what’s in place at a grocery store, said Freeman. Masks are required inside, and people are being asked to enter from the new ramp entrance on the right hand side of the building, and exit on the left.
Waitlist of vendors
For the first time in two years the market has a waitlist of vendors, said Freeman. “We are at capacity. There are so many established and new businesses that want to be at the market.”
The Lorne Street location, at 6000 square feet, is “a good option for this winter,” said Freeman, “but I would love to have a 35 vendor market, with 1000 or 2000 more square feet that we could use, because we could definitely fill it.”
The waitlist includes those waiting for both indoor and outdoor spots, and Freeman says he is reaching out to adjacent property owners on Lorne Street to look at expanding the outdoor market into parking spaces.
Freeman said he encourages interested vendors to get in touch. “We prioritize people based on how early they get in touch and how long they’ve been involved with the market,” he said, “and we do have vendors that will be away doing craft shows and that kind of thing, so I can sometimes get people from the waitlist.”
A new permanent home
Sackville town council recently had a look at a rough estimate on a multipurpose building that would provide a permanent home for the farmers market, as well as additional recreation space for the town.
At a meeting November 1, Sackville town council got a first glimpse of what it might cost to build the new multi-purpose building for the town that would serve as a permanent home for the farmers market and a new recreation space. The rough estimate came in at $3.4 million for a building nearly 11,000 square feet in size. Councillors expressed interest in continuing to explore options for the building, but staff said the size of the project means it is a few years off.
Freeman says he found the council reaction encouraging. “The impression I got is that council is willing to greenlight staff moving further in the direction of having an engineered plan and beginning to seek sources of funding,” said Freeman, adding that market management knew it could take years when they started advocating for a new building.
“What initially we thought was going to be a three year project is more like a 10 year project,” said Freeman, “when you look at organizing all of the stakeholders, bringing it to the town, the town doing all of its design work, and then getting council to authorize it, and seeking the funding. There’s so many steps.”
The Sackville Farmers Market runs 9am to noon every Saturday at 18 Lorne Street, throughout the winter. A list of vendors is available at sackvillefarmersmarket.ca, and the latest news is on the market Facebook page.
