Downtown Farmers Market is ending, moving to Chesapeake

[mecarr]

Well this is too bad.
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BY STEVE LACKMEYER
Published: May 9, 2009

The farmers market run by OSU-OKC is abandoning downtown and moving to the neighborhood of Chesapeake Energy Corp.

"It has to do with convenience and commerce,” said Cheryl Camp, who coordinates the markets. "We had a number of customers who said they would come to the downtown market if there was parking to be found. And if they found parking, they had to walk a ways to the market.”

Camp confirmed that the market was moved after an alternate location was offered by Chesapeake Energy.

The market now will run every Thursday, 3 to 7 p.m., in the Glenbrook East parking lot on NW 63, just west of Western Avenue.

Camp said response to a soft opening for the new location Thursday was "robust.”

The markets were previously in downtown’s Couch Drive Park from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every Wednesday. Officials with Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. said OSU-OKC declined to consider alternate locations or hours.

"We are disappointed,” spokeswoman Kim Searls said. "We felt it was a nice part of downtown and something it needs. We had a good working relationship and we did what we could to make the market successful.”

Suggested help
Searls said Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. tried to offer changes to make the Couch Drive Park market successful. She said a time change was suggested to make it easier for shoppers to pick up goods on their way home instead of having to bring produce back to their office.

"They took our suggestion but they took it north,” Searls said.

John Williams, general manager of the Skirvin Hilton, said he was willing to continue last year’s support including marketing and promotions.

"I still think it’s a wonderful thing and I wish it were still happening,” Williams said. "We spent a significant amount of money to promote the event last year. We had our executive chef, Andrew Black, out there every week and we tried to utilize different farmers’ products every week.”

Black would cook the items at the hotel and then offer samples in a tent at the market, Williams said. The chef also traveled with television news crews to different farms promoting their products and how they could be used in recipes.

Williams and Searls said they would both welcome pairing up again with anyone hoping to re-launch a market.

"We are still ready, willing and eager to participate,” Williams said.

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[PennyQuilts]

Thanks, Mecarr.

[kevinpate]

was the downtown, now Chesapeake, based farmer's market the only one in the city proper? if so, that seems odd given the size of OKC itself, notwithstanding all the other smaller locales which nestle in with it both inside and outside of the county.

[Cid]

boo.

Regarding other Farmer's markets, no, there is a large one over at the farmers market building south of I40. Others here could give you better directions.

[foodiefan]

The OSU-OKC Market (the Downtown/Chesapeake was/is a satellite of this one) on Portland, just north of Reno). It is all Oklahoma grown meats, veggies, dairy, baked goods, plants, et cet.., and a good selection of organic. The Bethany Children's Center also has one. . .smaller, but great product. . .also Oklahoma grown. Just a note. . . if it's not Oklahoma grown, it's being trucked in from out-of-state. Support our Oklahoma grown markets!!

[Insider]

Well, seing as how I want nothing to do with the 'campus' nor Chesapeake, I guess I will no longer be visiting the farmers market! Their loss!

[Martin]

bad news for downtown, good news for me... that'll be a pretty convenient time & location to swing by after work... will have to check it out!

-M

[metro]

Yeah I'm pretty pissed at this. The problem for me was the day/time. As the article stated, people including myself didn't want to bring food/plants, etc. back to the office. Had they been smart about it and done it past 5pm, then people could take it straight home. I think one downtown on Saturday would do real well. Sorry, not sure what parking problems they're blaming, but I never experienced any. This was an attraction downtown greatly needed and will miss. What a blow to Downtown OKC.

As far as the other posters, there are several Farmers Markets in the metro, most have been posted. The main one over on S. Klein is the largest and it operates daily. The one at the OSU-OKC campus is pretty nice too. As others have stated, the one that was downtown that now moved to Chesapeake is an extension of OSU-OKC farmer's market.

[Of Sound Mind]

Yeah I'm pretty pissed at this. The problem for me was the day/time. As the article stated, people including myself didn't want to bring food/plants, etc. back to the office. Had they been smart about it and done it past 5pm, then people could take it straight home. I think one downtown on Saturday would do real well. Sorry, not sure what parking problems they're blaming, but I never experienced any. This was an attraction downtown greatly needed and will miss. What a blow to Downtown OKC.

As far as the other posters, there are several Farmers Markets in the metro, most have been posted. The main one over on S. Klein is the largest and it operates daily. The one at the OSU-OKC campus is pretty nice too. As others have stated, the one that was downtown that now moved to Chesapeake is an extension of OSU-OKC farmer's market.

As someone who works in Leadership Square, it was convenient for me to go to the market and parking wasn't a problem because I was already parked down here. For those not working down here, I could see where parking would be a problem.

I agree that the time probably wasn't the most convenient for consumers. I too didn't want to bring anything big or anything I might want/need refrigerated back to my office at lunch time to take home later that evening.

It'll be missed, but it's probably a good move on their part. It's not a huge lost for me personally because I always have the Edmond Farmer's Market to rely on.

[ultimatesooner]

Well, seing as how I want nothing to do with the 'campus' nor Chesapeake, I guess I will no longer be visiting the farmers market! Their loss!

I doubt they really care

[OKCMallen]

Well, seing as how I want nothing to do with the 'campus' nor Chesapeake, I guess I will no longer be visiting the farmers market! Their loss!

Seems like a silly reason not to go support a farmers' market.

It was neat to have it downtown, but that was generally not a good idea. This move will be better for everyone.

[metro]

Everyone, except those of us who live/work/play downtown.

[Insider]

Seems like a silly reason not to go support a farmers' market.

It was neat to have it downtown, but that was generally not a good idea. This move will be better for everyone.

It is a reason not to support that one. I will still continue to visit the main location on Portland as well as the Norman Farmers Market and the Edmond Farmers Market when I am in Edmond.

[OKCMallen]

Everyone, except those of us who live/work/play downtown.

It wasn't being supported by you guys, so you lost it. I'm not sure why tears are being shed here.

[metro]

Based upon the reasons they stated they moved it, sounds more like they set it up for failure in the beginning, and YES it WAS SUPPORTED. There was a decent crowd out there every week, and the Skirvin did a live tv show on Channel 9 using ingredients from the market. Sounds more political to me.

[Steve]

Metro's observations are pretty accurate. I suspect they messed up from the start on the location and timing.

[krisb]

Just another addition to the Chesapeake conglomerance. It will cater to the Nichols Hills crowd, not too many others. I am disappointed, because downtown is everyone's space and it sounds like OSU-OKC wasn't willing to make it work.

[Steve]

Don't count downtown out in this one. There may be one or two "steals" coming at the expense of the Chesapeake neighborhood.

[OKCMallen]

Not sure what better location/timing you could have. OKCians that don't have to go downtown do NOT go downtown. It's that simple. Even in our relatively low-traffic downtown, parking is often hard to find, or you have to pay to get in a garage. The people that work downtown: carrying food back to your office is not convenient. I would wager there aren't too many housewives/non-working people living downtown where it's convenient to just go shopping for fun. People skedaddle out of downtown at 430-530, so I don't know if changing the hours would help out that much.

This was simply a bad idea. Seems simple enough. Move it someplace where it's more convenient for people that want to go.

[Steve]

This one is too easy. I'll let Metro have at it.

[PennyQuilts]

Like it or not, I worked downtown for years and the idea of returning downtown on the weekend or after hours never occured to me unless for the Arts Festival or something. Then, the parking for horrendous. That probably soured a lot of people from going downtown on off nights - you get it into your head that it is nothing but dark and one way streets and cars and traffic. That isn't the case, frequently, but it is a perception.

[Of Sound Mind]

Like it or not, I worked downtown for years and the idea of returning downtown on the weekend or after hours never occured to me unless for the Arts Festival or something. Then, the parking for horrendous. That probably soured a lot of people from going downtown on off nights - you get it into your head that it is nothing but dark and one way streets and cars and traffic. That isn't the case, frequently, but it is a perception.

It's typically not dark during the noon hour when the Farmer's Market was last year and wouldn't be dark for the typical Farmer's Market season if they would move it to the late afternoon and/or early evening hours.

I don't think the downtown Farmer's Market was intended to be convenient for everyone, but was convenient for those of us who work or live downtown, which is a pretty decent-sized population. Moving it to Chesapeake makes it more convenient for some and less convenient for others. You'll never please everyone when it comes to location or hours of operation. That's why the more options, the better. I liked having the downtown market to go to mid-week and the Edmond market to go to on Saturday mornings. Now, with this move, it will be the Edmond market only. Their loss, not mine, whether they care or not.

[metro]

This one is too easy. I'll let Metro have at it.

Let's just say Mallen's post was laughable and I don't even feel like going after that one.

Let's see 50,000+ work in the Downtown Area, 8 MILLION visitors downtown each year, PLUS tens of thousands more workers in the Health Sciences and Capitol Area, versus, what 2,000 that work at Chesapeake. Hello, this one is a no brainer..........It was poorly promoted and set up for "failure" (by OSU's definition) to begin with.

[onthestrip]

I think I'll have to agree with mallen on this. I don't work or live downtown but I was well aware of the farmers market downtown, but never considered going because it wasn't very convenient. And the 50,000+ workers in downtown had to know about it but apparently didn't use it that much either. So I'm not sure why everyone is blaming osu-okc because I have a feeling it will be more successful near chesapeake. I do, however, think there should be some type of farmers market for the downtown crowd, just would have to be smaller and maybe at a different time.

[tburn]

Well this new location works great for me -- I'm happy to hear about the relocation.
Too bad it isn't just an additional location.

I would think a downtown market could work great - if open in the the afternoon
3-7 perhaps.