After stewing on the back burner for a few months, a Barrie Farmers’ Market letter saying it would prefer staying at Barrie City Hall, and no longer be part of the planned Maple Avenue permanent market project, was finally dealt with by city councillors last night.
And to no real conclusion.
Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl asked Barrie Farmers' Market operations manager, Jaime Grant, when its position changed, and why, at Wednesday's finance and responsible governance committee meeting.
Grant, who’s been with the Barrie Farmers' Market for about a year, said she researched the market project and found it dated back to 2005.
“So we’re talking about an 18-year discussion about possibly moving,” she said. “(Barrie Farmers' Market members) looked at how much money it was going to cost to do this project and that was a big factor in wanting to step back.”
Grant did not say how much money was involved in the Barrie Farmers' Market changing locations.
“(The Barrie Farmers' Market) felt they were sort of a small part of this project, but it really expanded over the years as this grew,” Grant said. “This was not what it originally started out to be, so the fact that it grew and developed was probably great for downtown, but not so much for the farmers’ market.
“The project became very large over that time, over that 18 years, and with that came a lot of new concerns that didn’t happen in the beginning," she added.
Mayor Alex Nuttall said councillors need more information before dealing with the issue, whether the Barrie Farmers' Market is part of the permanent market or not.
“Either I’d like to have a conversation directly with the farmers’ market and the (permanent) market folks, or I’d like a presentation from both because there’s a serious gap here,” he said. “There’s a gap in the sense of what was being talked about a year ago and what we’re seeing … now. We’ve heard a very small part of that explanation on one side tonight.”
A motion to defer an update to the permanent market’s status was approved.
In a Jan. 3 letter to Nuttall and council members, Grant said the Barrie Farmers' Market would rather stay at Barrie City Hall, where it operates Saturday mornings, than have a new location at the Barrie Bayside Market Area, to be located at the current transit terminal site.
Grant said that while the Barrie Farmers' Market is constrained in winter months by being indoors at the Barrie City Hall Rotunda, it would like to work with city staff on an expansion plan to present to council in the near future.
“If there’s an expansion in size required for the farmers' market, I think we should understand what that looks like, we should understand what the request is, I think we should understand what the costs are,” Nuttall said.
Grant also noted in her letter that a permanent market would be considered direct competition to the Barrie Farmers' Market, not complementary.
The Barrie Farmers' Market, operating Saturdays from 8 a.m. until noon, averages approximately 3,050 visitors in that four-hour period during the busiest summer months, Grant’s letter states. This breaks down to 74 per cent local residents and 26 per cent tourists to the area.
The previous council (2018-2022) endorsed, in principle, the concept of a Barrie Bayside Market Area centred around the conversion of the existing transit terminal on Maple Avenue to a year-round market, including a community commercial kitchen, and the construction of a new building of at least 10,000 square feet nearby to house the Barrie Farmers’ Market, with a goal of opening to the public in 2024.
City staff estimated a bill for the first phase of the project of approximately $425,000 in consultant, architect and staff resourcing costs.
The estimated total cost is $29 million to $32 million during 13 to 15 years for the permanent market, the Barrie Farmers’ Market and three or four additional buildings in the area, plus facilities such as a skating trail and artisans village. There would also be costs associated with providing Barrie police with a new downtown home.
Operating costs for the market project are estimated to be about $550,000 annually, but the market could operate on a break-even basis.
The city’s portion of the money would likely come from Barrie’s reinvestment reserve, which is funded by Alectra dividends and meant for community projects. It’s expected there would also be federal and provincial money, especially for the farmers’ market building.
Completion of the Allandale Transit Mobility Hub would be required before any conversion or construction of the existing transit terminal. The site works and design for the Essa Road hub are well underway. However, the construction of this project was delayed due to lags in Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) funding approvals, as well as inflationary impacts on the project cost. Staff are awaiting further ICIP approvals before beginning the actual construction of the building. Other necessary pre-construction work continues.
And during city budget talks earlier this year, council referred all capital projects in relation to the downtown permanent market to the finance and responsible governance committee.
