A few blocks west of Fremont's center, tucked into an underground parking garage and spilling out into the sunny driveway, there are hundreds of people doing their weekend shopping, Fremont-style: It's the Fremont Sunday Market, where vendors hawk everything from sweet potato soup to daffodils, antiques to handmade crafts. The market has been a part of the Fremont landscape since 1990, and this Sunday is no different--80 vendors have set up shop today, including a man pounding metal rings into chain mail, and an elderly woman arranging dried flowers into $5 bouquets. They've both set up booths in the sun, something all of the vendors would like to do by the end of April, when they hope to move the market outside for the summer. For the winter, the market has holed up in the underground lot of the Burke Building, at North 34th Street and Evanston.
Jon Hegeman, the market's manager, has asked the city for a permit to close one block of 34th Street each Sunday. Though the market has been in the street before--one block east at 34th and Fremont, until it was displaced by construction last summer--this would be a first for 34th and Evanston. There's just one problem with 34th and Evanston: Sound Mind and Body gym, located in a large green building there, has put up a fight against the permit.
Closing 34th Street, the gym's owners say, would hamper their business--the market would squash public parking spaces on 34th, and gym members might have difficulty accessing the gym's parking lot. Gym owner Vicki Aldrich said up to 500 of the gym's several thousand members come by each afternoon--far more than the gym's private lot can accommodate. So members park on 34th, which has 72 free spaces. If the market takes up that street, members would have to park farther away.
Aldrich and her business partner, Richard Harrington, wrote a letter to Mayor Greg Nickels in February to voice their disapproval of the plan. Flexing its financial clout, the letter mentions the $308,000 Sound Mind and Body paid in city taxes last year, and questions whether the market paid similar taxes. "Recently Mr. Hegeman circulated a petition indicating that he was requesting permission from the Seattle Transportation Department to close off North 34th Street from Phinney to Evanston Avenues on each Sunday from April to October," the letter said. "Hopefully this request is unreasonable enough to be dismissed without consideration."
Hegeman thinks the request is perfectly reasonable. He says the market shouldn't suffer because of a gym's parking needs. Additionally, he says, the gym didn't plan for enough member parking when the 40,000-square-foot facility was built.
"They have about 70 spaces in front of their building for customer parking. When they hit peak hours, they overflow onto 34th," Hegeman says. "They had an option to build an underground lot when they were constructing the [gym]. They didn't, for cost reasons." Now, the gym, which didn't return our calls (and so didn't address Hegeman's opinion about an underground lot), is whining over parking spaces it doesn't own, to the detriment of a popular community event. It's a selfish move that makes the gym look like a bad neighbor.
The city's Special Events Committee, headed up by Virginia Swanson, is trying to mediate between the market and the gym. The committee called a public meeting in Fremont on Wednesday, March 27, to discuss the market. Nearly 75 people crowded into the basement of the Fremont Library for the meeting, and everyone who spoke supported the market.
For example, the Fremont Chamber of Commerce is behind the market. "This is one of the few places where you can make something in your garage, bring it to Fremont, and sell it," President Russ Mead said.
Hegeman knows the gym has parking concerns--he's worked with the owners in the past to prevent market vendors and customers from using the private lot, and has secured private parking for vendors this summer to keep their vehicles off the street. He says the gym's summer parking concerns can be taken care of without blocking the market.
"Within a block radius of the gym there are 250 car spaces, free and available all day on Sundays," Hegeman says.
Hegeman's right--gym patrons would only have to walk a block or so to access the gym if their own lot was full. One man at last Wednesday's meeting said that was a reasonable distance for the gym's customers to travel.
"If you're going to work out, it seems you can walk a couple of blocks anyway," he said.
The Special Events Committee will decide on the market's permit by its April 13 meeting. In the meantime, some Fremont residents are writing to the gym's owners, trying to convince them how important the market is to the community.
Other community members are worried that the fight over the market could set a precedent--if Sound Mind and Body successfully blocks the market permit, could other businesses challenge similar Fremont events, like the Summer Solstice Parade and the fair?
Residents' worries about upcoming events aren't off the mark: Aldrich has already voiced concern over the Fremont Fair, held at the end of June; she closes the gym during the weekend event, since her customers have difficulty accessing it. And she's upset over last year, when fair organizers didn't set up a fence near the gym to protect it from the crowds, as promised--fair staff dropped off the pieces and left the assembly to Aldrich and her partner. Though Aldrich did not return calls, it's evident from the Special Events Committee meeting minutes that she's frustrated with the summer activities around her gym.
Peter Toms, another Fremont resident who helps organize the Solstice Parade, would like to work with the gym to address its concerns. He hopes to avoid a conflict like the one over the market--but it's been difficult.
"I've already been hung up on once by the manager there," he says.
