CLEVELAND - Attention, West Side Market shoppers!

The historic food hall will undergo a controversial schedule change next month, adding Sundays to the mix after years of debate and more than a century of consistency.

Cleveland officials confirmed that the city-owned facility will be open from noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays starting April 3. The city also is preparing to combine and reconfigure two parking lots behind the market, in a project that will contribute to congestion over the next 10 months but, upon completion, will add more than 100 sorely-needed spaces to the district.

Those are the headline changes, for now.

The market's other hours, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, are staying the same. And the city is easing into Sundays, making them optional much like Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market did 10 years ago.

But the gradual transition won't make Sunday any more palatable to some purveyors.

"I'm not opening Sunday," said Melissa DeCaro of DeCaro Produce, a market mainstay since 1934. "I will never open Sunday. I don't think that Sunday's a good idea."

DeCaro and other vendors, including Diane Dever of the Irene Dever dairy stand, view the new hours as a potential burden being foisted upon small businesses by an out-of-touch landlord. Then there are vendors like Bob Holcepl of City Roast coffee and the Crepes de Luxe stand, who sees an opportunity to boost sales and attract customers on a popular shopping day.

"Here's the bottom line," said Holcepl, a market vendor since the late 1990s. "I am in retail. I'm here to serve my customers when they want to shop, not when I want to work."

In a letter distributed to vendors late Monday, the city's market manager confirmed the April 3 start of Sunday hours. The five-day-a-week debut will come with "huge announcements, marketing and some programming," wrote Felicia Hall, the manager. She also noted that the city will keep track of which businesses are open, and which are closed.

Updated market rules show that vendors can choose between Monday - the slowest day of the week - and Sunday. In a document provided to The Plain Dealer, the city said that operators of more than 100 stands - roughly 60 percent of the spaces in the main building and L-shaped produce arcade - said they might be willing to work on Sundays. And many said they'd still consider Mondays.

"We have had conversations with the tenants, and about 70 percent of them say they like the idea of being open on Sunday," said Michael Cox, director of the city's public works department, which oversees the market. "We just need to make sure that they do what they need to do in terms of regulations."

Lease agreements and market rules give the city the ability to cite, fine, suspend and eventually kick out vendors who don't follow regulations. But Cox and Ken Silliman, chief of staff to Mayor Frank Jackson, acknowledged that the city hasn't always enforced the rules. A few vendors are skeptical about whether - and when - the city is going to crack down.

"I would hope that we could have a conversation with those who have some issue with opening on a Sunday or Monday and see if we can work that out before we get to a violation state," Cox said. "We're not trying to give violation notices to everyone. We want everyone to follow the rules and regulations."

The West Side Market has maintained a similar schedule since it opened in 1912.

Longtime vendors, particularly those who sell meat or other cooking staples instead of prepared foods, have resisted any change in days. They're worried about adding staff, time and costs, especially since the city just raised market rents for the first time in a decade. And those vendors believe Sunday hours will just cut into Saturday shopping, without a net gain.

"I'll be 67 in April," said tenants' association president Vince Bertonaschi, who spends Mondays cutting meat in the market's basement and says opening his stand on Sundays or Mondays would hurt the quality of his products and service. "If [the city wants] to throw me out, I guess they'll throw me out. I like doing my job. I like my customers, and my customers like me."

Other public markets, including Reading Terminal and the Findlay Market in Cincinnati, have seen overall business increase after introducing Sundays. But it takes time for shoppers to adjust. And customers won't just show up. Such a major change requires marketing, which the city and nonprofit neighborhood group Ohio City Inc. have discussed.

"It's like everything else in Cleveland," City Councilman Joe Cimperman, who represents the neighborhood, said of consternation about the changes. "The sky is falling, and then you realize what's falling are gumdrops and jellybeans. The end isn't near. The beginning is near."

Cimperman believes the changes are necessary to ensure that the market stays relevant and lasts another century. He's leaving council in late March for a nonprofit job, so other ideas he's mentioned - online ordering; wine and cheese tastings; efforts to attract more diverse vendors; and paid parking at Market District meters on Saturdays - aren't going anywhere right now.

The city does plan to start charging for parking behind the market, though, once the lot-reconfiguration project is complete. Officials will talk about the parking lot construction and market hours during a public meeting at the Urban Community School on Lorain Avenue from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today.

A conceptual plan shows the reconfigured and combined parking lots behind the West Side Market. The project, scheduled to start soon, includes permeable pavers and other green infrastructure. The U.S. EPA gave Cleveland a $500,000 grant for the project, and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District followed up with a matching grant. The estimated budget for the job is $3.3 million.

Silliman said the city still hasn't set a rate structure for the parking lot.

In the past, city and neighborhood leaders have mentioned free parking for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, with a charge of $1 per hour after that. "We understand that there should be a reasonable time for people to come and shop at the market" without paying, Silliman said.

By law, the city must allocate any revenues from the main market lot toward paying off debt on parking-revenue bonds that were issued to fund construction of downtown garages in the 1990s. But parking fees from a smaller lot to the west, known as the Hicks lot, can - and will - go toward capital improvements to the West Side Market, Silliman said. That money might total $200,000 a year, he said.

The parking-lot project could start this month. The city expects to tackle the construction in phases, starting with the Hicks lot and moving to sections of the market lot between now and December. Parking fees will be implemented in late 2016 or early 2017.

The timing of the construction, coinciding with expanded hours, particularly galls some vendors. Dever, who has worked at her family's stand for 45 years, said tenants would be more open to schedule changes if the city resolved the parking shortages first. Customers gripe that it's tough to navigate the neighborhood on Saturdays, when shoppers compete for parking with patrons of nearby bars, restaurants and businesses.

Dever doesn't plan to work on Sundays.

Over at Kate's Fish, Tom McIntyre said he's undecided. He would prefer to stay open late on weeknights instead of adding more weekend hours. But evenings aren't on the table right now, based on the city's updated rules.

"It's a big decision," McIntyre said of Sundays. "We're going to take a wait-and-see approach, I think. I'm not steadfast against it, but I'm also not super-excited to get up and go to work on Sunday."

Clarification: The West Side Market has been closed on Sundays, with rare exceptions for special events, since it opened in 1912. But the market opened as early as 5 a.m. on weekdays, at times, and closed as late as 10:30 p.m., at times, during the first 50 years of its history, according to author Laura Taxel, who wrote a book tied to the market's centennial.