The Path toward a Permanent Home for the City Market

The City Market Task Force made its recommendation to Charlottesville City Council at a July 7, 2011 work session at City Space.  While Council did not take final action at the work session, they were very receptive to the visionary plan laid out by the task force.  Council will be considering it further, and asking for public input, in the coming months.

The essence of this recommendation is the following:

1. “The Task Force recommends that an area that incorporates the current downtown Market site and its surroundings become a designated mixed-use Market District, anchored by the permanent City Market site.  The new Market District will balance an expanded City Market ‘public space’ and its commercial activities with financially viable, private development and parking in a cohesive and mutually supportive mixed-use district. The District can expand to the east, south, and west along side streets that connect with the Downtown Mall, and even along the Main Street corridor towards the University.”
   

This recommendation was passionately presented at the task force meeting, with an introduction by Task Force chair Jeffrey Plank.   We’ve posted links here so that you can see the full text of the introduction, which includes a summary of how the task force arrived at their recommendation.  We’ve also linked to the full text of the task force recommendation. 

Task Force remarks and introduction to Council.pdf

Final Task Force Recommendation- July 6 2011.pdf

Additional resources are linked below:

Market Central brought David O’Neil, an internationally known market consultant, to Charlottesville in April to offer his observations about the City Market, and the suggested alternate locations.  During his visit, David visited our market, toured many of the proposed alternate locations, gave a public presentation about markets, and met with the Task Force to discuss his observations. 

David blogged about his visit to Charlottesville here - please check it out!  You can also download his summary findings here:  City Market observations.pdf:

Both are interesting reads if you’d like to know more about what makes markets, in general, successful public spaces. We’ve also linked to the full video from David O’Neil’s presentation on April 30th at the Jefferson Theater (see youTube link at left).  Our apologies for not having a shorter version available for viewing yet - it’s in the works.

The months ahead will include further study by City Administration, and opportunities for public input.  We will continue to post updates, and if you haven’t already, we encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter, which will include updates to the process as they are available.  We also invite comments and feedback from all stakeholders.  Please stop by our booth at the market on Saturday mornings, or email us.