The Saturday farmers' market downtown is about to permanently move to a new summer home.

Starting in May, the Peterborough Regional Farmers' Market will be located in summer on the newly renovated courtyard of Peterborough Square.

The market will also take over part of Charlotte Street, which will be closed for the market on Saturday mornings between George and Water streets, as will the parking spaces on Water Street along the courtyard.

Those areas on Charlotte Street and Water Street will have vendors' stalls.

Anywhere from 80 to 100 stalls will fit on the total outdoor space, according to a post from the PRDFM board of directors.

"We understand there will be some challenges with setting up in a new market space, but we feel very confident that we can all work together and make this transition smooth and successful," states the Facebook post.

It means the market will operate from the same downtown property year-round: in the winter, it's in a lower-level location inside mall.

Ever since the market launched in 2018, it has operated during the summer at the Citi Centre courtyard at Charlotte and Aylmer streets.

In the Facebook post, the directors thank Citi Centre owner Brad Smith for his "unwavering support" of the market, without whom the market would never have been launched.

The market's vendors are verified, selling only what they have grown, raised or produced.

The market started downtown at Citi Centre after seven local farmers were evicted from the Saturday morning Morrow Park market.

The Morrow Park market is run by the Peterborough and District Farmers' Market Association.

Morrow Park is owned by the city and last fall the city launched a bidding process to choose an operator there.

Both the markets — the downtown market and the one currently at Morrow Park — submitted bids, but the city later cancelled the bidding process.

That's because the downtown PRFM withdrew its bid, stating that it wanted to focus its energies on making the downtown a destination for homegrown food, and the PDFMA's bid was rejected.

It leaves the city with no bidders to run the market in May, when the new licence agreement was supposed to take effect for three years.

It's still unclear earlier this month what that will mean for the Morrow Park market in spring.

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"The city is currently looking at next steps and will be reporting to council with an update," wrote city communications manager Brendan Wedley to the Examiner in an email from Feb. 5.

joelle.kovach

@peterboroughdaily.com