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City was on schedule to reopen on Dec. 13, and now has to remove the ice again.
The Saskatoon Farmers Market (SFM) looks to have found a new home.
Currently, SFM is in talks with a location to move from their current home in River Landing on December 22. Erika Quiring, Executive Director of the SFM confirmed the search is nearing its end, but it wasn’t easy.
“We’ve evaluated probably 80 properties … we’ve met with a whole bunch of really great people who were interested in collaborating with us over the past six months. We hope that we have found a location, and we’re negotiating now for that site,” she said.
Quiring said they plan to announce the new location, barring negotiations, “sometime in the not distance future.” She said the location would be within city limits, but won’t be in a centralized or downtown area.
They also still are looking to speak to their vendors to get their input on the new space.
They’ve been at their current location for 12 years, but are on the move following a long back-and-forth with the City of Saskatoon.
Throughout the process, Quiring said she feels disappointed that their current location didn’t continue to work for both parties.
“It’s pretty hard. It’s a homey space. Our customer base knows where to find (us) and the vendors are happy. A lot of them have built their businesses here from the beginning.”
After the SFM moves, there are questions about what will take its place. Quiring said they were told that an “animation piece” is the next step at the current facility.
“We’ve been told that it could be anything but cigarettes and porn. We’ve never really understood what the city’s been looking for there.”
Quiring said the whole process seemed to not have SFM in the long-term plans of the city.
“The city has goals. They’ve got visions, and a gross plan, all of that is understandable — Sometimes, it’s felt like the City of Saskatoon hasn’t wanted to cooperate with the SFM to the point where sometimes it has appeared that the city’s initiatives related to the management of this site has seemed to undermine the integrity of the cooperative. That’s one thing we’re happy to be leaving.”
Will clientele follow?
One aspect of SFM’s move they’re not looking forward to is the possibility of a change in clientele, Quiring said. They evaluated properties around Saskatoon, as well as some outside of city limits.
Quiring said their possible new location seems to check off many of the boxes they were searching for.
“We believe that we have found a beautiful home that we can settle into, and that actually will be our permanent home. Hopefully, that happens.”
In terms of if their current clientele will follow them when they do permanently shut the doors though, is up in the air.
“This is a real problem. We have quite a few customers who reside in the adjacent neighbourhoods. We have other customers that do drive in. If we’re in some place further removed, our customer patterns will very likely change,” Quiring said.
Quiring said they do worry about the period in which customers will have to adjust to the new location. Moving forward, Quiring said they look to find support from the city in some way if they do struggle out of the gate.
She said little progress has been made in that aspect, but they have been meeting with councillors to try to show the big picture from both parties, and find a meeting ground.
Quiring said they hope that the city understands the value and contributions that the SFM brings to Saskatoon residents, and hope to build on positive relationships.
“I think the difference between the Saskatoon Farmers Market’s perspective and the City of Saskatoon’s perspective is we feel that we have operated an excellent farmers market here, and more than fulfilled the terms of our agreement,” she said.