The 104st Outdoor Farmers’ Market is Back?! M’eh - so what.

JACOEB: Just Another City Of Edmonton Boondoggle.

Welcome to another Substack, dear reader - thanks for dropping by - this one’s a doozy!!  First off, a big thanks to all the people who gave us feedback on our efforts so far!! We appreciate you - Jim, Tamara, Margo, Maureen, Shawna, who’d I miss? [JMC] - we really do and if you haven’t commented yet, get on it like the early adopter Super crew :) Grab a drink and a treat to eat and let’s get to it!
 

By now, a lot, if not everybody has heard that the 104st Outdoor market is coming back - Yay!! Right?? Well, in today’s Substack, let’s head to the bittersweetest Edmonton timeline to examine this “Return Of the 104st Street Outdoor Market”, and you can ask what the heck really happened to the city’s oldest surviving market? I mean if the market was so great, why’d it go indoors at a crappy location for the last little while, how’d it go broke, and what about all the small businesses and vendors that the city supposedly supports?? Really, the market’s return is just part of a larger story about the city of Edmonton, downtown, and small businesses. JACOEB

IMPORTANT: Start of Editor/hubby’s note (Colleen would like to remind everyone there is no ring on her finger hahah): It’s no secret that everywhere you go with Colleen, she’s going to know people and wind up clucking like a hen…er having great conversations. So when I pitched explaining about the 104st Outdoor market and the bittersweetest timeline she was quick to tell me: “HAH! It’s going to be impossible to write about without explaining all the backstories including Gene Dub; how all the vendors got screwed; how the Edmonton Downtown Farmers’ Market Association (EDFMA) got screwed and then went broke; how 104st street businesses got screwed; how all the customers got screwed; Cluck, cluck, bok, bok, BOK! - Cluck!!”  So to simplify things and steer clear of slinging too much mud, we won’t mention (m)any names, and we’ll try to keep it clean. But just try to remember that SEVERAL conversions with multiple vendors at multiple markets, board members, 104st business owners and past owners, and even us lowly customers/shoppers went into the making of this “ranty” Substack. PS: “Ranty” may be in Jason’s voice more than Colleen’s. End Editor’s note. JMC (still no ring LOL)

Whew! Still here?    🙂

a. THE PAST: A sweet timeline turns bitter. 

Once upon a time, in a sweet timeline, Colleen used to be the Manager of Evoolution Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar’s Downtown 104th street location when the 104th street Outdoor Farmers’ Market was a thing. The Market was just incredible; she had to schedule extra staff and plan all around the immense traffic that the market would bring in on those Power Saturdays. Everyone loved the outdoor market: the vendors loved working it; the customers loved shopping it; the neighborhood businesses loved hosting it; the pet owners loved walking it; and the city loved supporting it. It was 120 years in the making and everyone was happy with it!! So what happened? 

Officially, I’d like to point you, dear reader, towards this excellent 15 minute read by TAPROOT EDMONTON news, entitled “The New Business of Farmers’ Markets in Edmonton” for an exceptionally thorough backstory on the Edmonton Farmers’ Market scene up to PRE-COVID 2019.  Oh, and if you’re at all interested in any other Edmonton news, culture, politics and daily happenings, I HIGHLY recommend TAPROOT EDMONTON as a fantastic source of local news. 

Unofficially, and the bitter timeline starts. What happened was the vendors were told that because of the upcoming LRT construction which would cause people to *gasp* have to cross construction on 102 ave, the city was kicking them out of 104st location. But luckily, a connected “developer” Gene Dub got a sweetheart deal on the 97th Street GWG building and somehow convinced the market management that they should just move the outdoor market indoors as it would take away all the vendors’ worries about weather and setting up tents, and they’d have soooo much foot traffic from opening two days a week all year long that it would be profitable: no problem. 

Spoiler alert: right from the start this did NOT go over well (for vendors) as many of them didn’t move/stay/survive at the new site with the new (extra) hours, new fees, new problems, new lies (about foot traffic, profitability, hours, costs, etc), new catastrophes… Although Kudos to those vendors who did stick it out till the bitter “oh by the way we declared bankruptcy and forgot to tell you about all the financial woes so we’re done next week” end.  

So to sum up: 

• Vendors? The shaft. 

• Gene Dub? About a cool million A YEAR from the city to lease the building (utilities NOT included). 

• Edmonton Downtown Farmers’ Market Association, after about 125 years working A-okay? Bankruptcy mostly from paying year-round utilities and upgrades on a decrepit building.

• Customers? We got a severely diminished, inconsistent, dog unfriendly, intermittent indoor experience, in a dodgy area of Edmonton’s downtown that wasn’t really supported by the City of Edmonton BUT it did have bonus homeless encampments due to the politics of the Ice District!  

• If I missed anything, please drop some love down in the comments…[JMC]

b. THE PRESENT: The start of the bittersweet timeline: 

Okay, we’ve gotta hand it to Global on this one, as of April 30th, 2024 they covered the jist, the bare minimum, The PolyAnna version of this quite well: “The Edmonton Downtown Farmers Market will return outdoors to 104th Street every Saturday starting June 15 until Oct. 12.It will take place on 104th Street between Jasper Avenue and 102nd Avenue.”

Video here:   https://globalnews.ca/news/10459921/edmonton-downtown-farmers-market-104th-street/ 

BY THE WAY: In reality the idea to go back to basics and have an outdoor market on 104th again had been floating around for a while in the EDFMA circles, with several (kinda mean) teasers that were put out, that then yanked the surviving or new 104th street businesses around. Teasers like: meetings and rumours about whether there could be a small daily storefront somewhere on 104th street along with the outdoor market coming back on Saturdays. OOPS. But now with the EDFMA bankrupted, there’s a new hat in the ring: Foundry Events has won the contract (from the Downtown Business Association)  to run the outdoor part of the market with that idea of a semi-permanent store lost to the winds.

c. THE FUTURE: Where will this Bittersweet timeline take us? 

Okay, and thanks for reading and following along this far - that’s why we love ya! We are pretty deep into this Bittersweet timeline…

• Sweet part: The market’s coming back!  

• Bitter part: It comes down to trust, hope, and getting jerked around by the city of Edmonton. Everybody loved the 104st Outdoor market, hands down. Then supposedly the city, in its infinite wisdom, yanked the market and paid a developer millions of dollars to concurrently bankrupt a 125 year old institution that had been running the market. Who’s got any trust left to hope that the whole boondoggle can be flipped and resurrected?? Evoolution the Olive Oil place? Nah, they moved due to astronomically high rents and lack of business/foot traffic/city enforcement of vagrancy. Care-it cafe and Deli? Nah, their 104th street landlord and the city didn’t give them any breaks during COVID and they were forced to close due to decreased overall traffic. Blue Plate diner? Nope more 104th street Landlord F*ckery causing a business to relocate. And the list just goes on forever… OH, did we mention how useless/detrimental The Ice District has been to the 104st businesses? Promises? Thanks city of Edmonton: Lots of those, but there’s a saying about unfulfilled promises …. 

And yes, COVID reared its ugly head but really it just put a fine point on the whole mess that had become the City of Edmonton’s feckless administration, nepotistic spending, and overall lack of planning or foresight to scaffold and support small businesses especially in the downtown core. 

Here’s where we’d like to hear from you, dear readers, in the comments. What’s your idea of  this whole JACOEB boondoggle? Do you know any more details, have anything to add or complain about the City of Edmonton’s slow boil of this downtown frog? Are you willing to trust that they’ll get this new incarnation of an outdoor city Market up and running in the downtown core they’ve decimated, neglected, and demolished with incompetence? What’s on your mind?? Tell us please!! (Do bribes help? I can enter every comment for a draw to get a bag of Colleen’s Chocolates pretzels… [JMC])  Plus we really appreciate shares and all that whatnot. :)  Thanks everyone!