City Council member Richard Conlin is pushing the idea of a seasonal, once-a-week farmer’s market at city hall to serve downtown workers and residents without easy access to Pike Place Market, his staff says. The council’s environment, energy and technology committee, which Conlin chairs, will hear a briefing on the proposed market tomorrow at 2:00 in council chambers.
Farmers’ Market at City Hall?
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Rising unemployment. Declining city budget projections. Social services at risk of being defunded. Out-of-touch transportation officials. Pollution. Traffic.
Nice to see Richard Conlin has his priorities in the right place.
Maybe he can team up with Nick Licata and have another summit on media consolidation! Seems like a great use of time.
Seattle is so hilarious some times.
Because getting to the Pike Place Market from fucking downtown is so difficult.
This will make no sense to anyone in the world who hasn’t been to Seattle – isn’t Pike Place right downtown behind Seattle Grace? Etc.
Conlin has out done himself with this stupid idea. The city’s problem do not include 5th and James proximity to organic carrots.
I’m about as pro-farmer’s market as they come, but this idea is pretty ridiculous.
“Downtown workers and residents without easy access to Pike Place Market”: Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Or if access to the Market is the issue, maybe they could ask the Market’s PDA to keep its grocery vendors open til 7 instead of 5 or 6??
This is some sort of joke, right? Downtown workers and residents without easy access to Pike Place? Easy like a 10 block walk? A free ride on any bus? A quick sprint on a bike? Instead of having a meeting at 2:00pm, why don’t they just walk up to the market and buy some produce?
Sadly, @1 for the win.
I mean, energy technology and environment and this is where they spend their time?
oh shut up, you begrudgers! this is a great idea for those of us who work farther down fifth avenue. it is a fucking pain to get down to the pike place market and back on your lunch hour, whether you take the bus or walk. ever notice how fucking SLOW people walk in the market? how they gawk at everything and stop right in front of you to watch those fucking flying fish? i don’t intend to spend my entire lunch hour saying excuse me to lame brain tourists!
i DO NEED a farmer’s market at city hall and if this goes through i will be a frequent customer. and hernandez, if you’re not nice to me, i shan’t give you any produce at ALL. ever.
Wait, aren’t the problems listed in 1 reasons FOR adding another farmers’ market? I’m guessing a few jobs could be created or at least strengthened. It could also be something that makes people more likely to shop locally, since they wouldn’t have to lug groceries that few extra blocks (sounds lazy, but a few extra blocks suck when the busses are ridiculously crowded or if you’re on bike or foot). Besides, it’d be nice to have a market downtown that allows for a respite from the summer Pike Place crowds. Finally, it might be a small but enticing piece of the density puzzle.
Oh yeah!
This idea was missed during the dot com bubble!
Good to know that mentality is still with us in Seattle.
Maybe city government can set up in a farmers field to do quality control.
i think it’s all just in the phrasing here. a farmers market downtown on 5th once a week? that sounds awesome! let’s get more people more access to them, they’re fun enhance community and all that crap. An alternate market for people who can’t get to pike place from downtown? huh? totally stupid. i think the office just needs to edit the statement a bit so it doesn’t sound so droolingly dumb.
Isn’t there now a big discount super market under the old Kress at about 2nd and Pike — as well as the Market itself…..
Conlin does too many poppers on the weekends.
But, it does show the total lack of priority. Full Funding of food banks is THE real conversation needed right now…. food related. Hunger will stalk the unemployed in a few months.
No money, no eat. The American system.
Get real Conlin, take the FREE bus to the Pike Place Market, the same place we just voted 80 million to re build … shit, oh shit, this council, what do we do?
It’s the priority it shows – this while they fast-track the mercer project that will actually SLOW TRAFFIC along the route, just because some Billionaires wanted it done.
I’m not against more farmer’s markets, I think they’re cool.
But -20 for style. And -50 for symbolism.
shut up, will, and take your saltpeter.
instead, how about a street food fair !!
but really the community meeting space in front of CH is never used, except the occasional concert for city workers, so at least we’d get some utility out of it.
sounds like a good idea. there are alot of people that work in that part of downtown, let alone live up on first hill, pioneer square, etc. hope they time it for people during lunch and going home.
… break from work ….
most of these markets are on weekends
There is no part of downtown from which it is difficult to reach Pike Place. WTF?
I work for the city and I don’t always get a chance to run over to the PP market. I would go to a farmers market at City Hall. I will caveat this support by saying that I would want to be sure that a weekly farmer’s market does not detract from Pike Place. I don’t want to create unnecessary competition for the Market and end up eroding clientele.
@10 does have a point– if you go to the Market on a nice day or a weekend, prepare for packs of tourists who are so overwhelmed with out-of-date Sleepless in Seattle merch and flying fish that they’ll stop in giant herds, blocking the entire market walkways. If people are committed to local produce and time-crunched, another market in another part of town would be nice.
Or, you know, PPM could extend their damn weekday hours to go from “tourist attraction” to “accessible to people who aren’t free between 7am and 5pm”. The husband catches his bus near there and by the time he comes through, plenty of vendors have shut down. I’m not asking him to bring me Genuine St. Helens Ash Jesus figurines, just some chard and beef.
@22: I agree. I’d shop there more often if I could get there before everything closed, it’s on my way home.
@13 i am with you, pike place is ‘uptown’ we need some representation down here in pioneer square etc. the real ‘downtown’
you know, if you head SOUTH from city hall, uwajimaya has great vegetables, too. they’re open all the time, and it’s TWO STOPS ON THE BUS TUNNEL.
jesus fucking christ.
It’s called using your lunch hour. I walked from 5th & Cherry to the Market many a-time on my lunch break, dodged the hordes of tourists and had enough time to eat lunch. Granted, it wasn’t every other day, but it worked.
Alternately, if at all possible, the morning is the most perfect time to shop at the Market before it is clogged with slow wads. I used to take an earlier bus downtown just so I could buy my produce before work.
There are 12000 people who work within a two block radius of City Hall. City Hall has a very lightly-used plaza that could provide great access to local food for those folks. Pike Place Market volunteered to organize the market, and they are very jazzed about the idea — they asked the farmers, and they are excited about adding more display space at another location. It works, the total cost is about $2500, people will like it — don’t understand the gripes of those who are negative. As if City folks taking a couple of hours to do something like this is bad, because why? Government should only do big things? Folks, life is not like that. the City can get a lot of small things done, and still have plenty of quality time to get the big things right.
excuse me, jfc, but uwajimaya is all downhill from my office and i really don’t feel like walking back uphill. it makes me crabby. and i am NOT near the bus tunnel. thank you, huzzah for local food. i am looking forward to purchasing lots of fresh produce this summer.
Don’t you guys have a bus tunnel?
NEW idea for downtown – block off a side street – bring in the cows and then – voila – fresh milk
Course, cow milking could be job training for the fired WaMoo people
Send this to Richard, his wife would make a good cow milker …. nothing personal, just an evaluation
Richard could inseminate them … he has skinny arms, another job skill to be learned