Market Collaborative 
wants 'showcase for 
region's extraordinary
agricultural bounty.'

Reckoning Day for Ferry Building Market Plan

For the past four years, the collaborative has sponsored the highly successful Ferry Plaza farmers market, one of the best in California, which unfolds each Saturday morning in a crowded parking lot just across the street from the Ferry Building. It is a site that the market will have to vacate soon, as construction of a new Embarcadero roadway starts up.

The collaborative has made no secret of its desire for permanent space inside the 250,000-square-foot Ferry Building. But Paul Osmundson, the port official in charge of the Ferry Building project, is noncommittal when asked for the port’s opinion of the proposal for a public produce market in the building. "I can’t tell you right now that we will require a public market in the ground floor," Osmundson recently told Farmers Market Outlook. "We probably will indicate that it is a preferred use, maybe even a strongly preferred use. But I don’t know that we will go so far as to say that it is a requirement. Although we may."

But Osmundson threw cold water on the notion that the farmers market might move in before the port strikes a deal for the entire renovation project, which will cost an estimated $65 million. "We’re not going tenant by tenant. We’ll seek a single development entity," Osmundson said.

In a colorful 10-page brochure, the collaborative outlined its plan for a public market to be held three half-days a week "to showcase our region’s extraordinary agricultural bounty."

The proposal calls for a high-ceilinged open space with 75 stalls, each of which would be independently owned by a farmer, and 25 or 30 additional stalls that could be rented out on a weekly basis by seasonal producers. When the market isn’t open for business, the site would be a public space offering dramatic views of the bay and a "striking setting for special events," the brochure suggests.

The growers allowed into the market would be those "who have a well-defined philosophy of quality" with "top priority" given to products that are "produced using sustainable agriculture methods," the brochure declares.

The focus would be on locally produced, fresh, farm products. But "imported specialty products that constitute ingredients for many cuisines of the Bay Area" could account for up to 25 percent of the products sold at the market. Up to 10 percent of the products sold could be prepared foods.

The market managers would try to have at least three vendors of each major kind of product in the market to encourage price competition. The market would maintain early morning hours for retailers and restaurateurs and would offer a full slate of educational programs to teach people about agricultural issues.

Over the last several years, the collaborative has lined up a good deal of public support for its proposal, with the help of an advisory board stacked with several leading figures in the northern California culinary and cultural establishment, including restaurateur Alice Waters, vintner Robert Mondavi and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

In December the San Francisco Chronicle weighed in with an editorial endorsing the collaborative’s plan, while subtly criticizing the port’s reluctance to let the farmers market into the building before a developer is selected. "Throngs of people on the waterfront and fresh food make for a popular hot spot, not a real estate hurdle," the editorial said. "The port should not squeeze this peach of an idea."

Osmundson said the first stage of the renovation project, which is now underway, is getting qualifications from development teams. Then the port will solicit proposals.

The target release date for requests for qualification is March or April, and then it will take 60 to 90 days for prospective bidders to get their teams together, Osmundson said. There will be a number of public hearings along the way, which should give the collaborative’s supporters a chance to advance their cause, calling on the goodwill the group has built up in four years of running a market that has become a popular fixture on the Embarcadero on Saturday mornings.

"Their approach has been to try and gain a foothold down here," said Osmundson. "I think they’ll probably be pretty successful because they have a track record here and they know the area. They’ve been looking at it for a long time.

"That being said," Osmundson continued, "I know there are a lot of other operators across the nation and in the Bay Area who have an interest in the Ferry Building. So the Public Market Collaborative by no means has some proprietary right to the space."