Lansing City Council could move City Market

Haley Hansen | Lansing State Journal

LANSING — The City Market may not be the City Market much longer.

On Monday, the City Council introduced a proposal to repeal part of an ordinance that specifically designates the current site of the City Market in Riverfront Park along the Grand River as its permanent location.

The proposed change comes after the City Council decided to cut its subsidy to the market by half last month.

“By passing this ordinance we're saying we're going to put all the options on that table in terms of the future of that space," Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said.

The original City Market opened in 1909 at a site northeast of the current market and was demolished in 2010 to make way for the developer Pat Gillespie's Marketplace Apartments. The new market opened that same year.

The City Market is managed by the Lansing Entertainment and Public Facilities Authority, a public agency which manages the Lansing Center, Cooley Law School Stadium and the City Market, all of which are city-owned.

The market has struggled in recent years to attract visitors and keep its vendors.

In August 2016, the market stopped exchanging Bridge card food benefits for tokens to be spent with vendors because it was no longer considered a farmer’s market by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In April, longtime vendor Hills' Home Cured Cheese left the market for farmers markets in Flint and Davison and a new outdoor pavilion market in downtown Saginaw.

“At the end of the day that building is no longer a market," Council member Patricia Spitzley said. "It’s not doing or performing the function that it was intended for. There's not a market there."

Spitzley said she'd support the city selling the current market. The city could sell the current building and lease the land it sits on. The city would need to get approval from residents in order to actually sell the land instead of leasing it since the land is park space.

In the coming months, the city will collect public input on the future of the space and the market itself, Spitzley said, adding that the city could potentially support other markets in the city instead of subsidizing the current iteration of the City Market.

In May, City Council voted unanimously to cut the city's annual subsidy to the Lansing City Market from $80,000 to $40,000. That means the market will be able to stay in operation through Labor Day, although the city could decide to appropriate more money to keep it open beyond that date, Schor said.

Schor said several people have reached out to the city with interest in the market's future but that the city still is fielding options from anybody who wants to make a proposal for the site.

“There’s been no decisions made, no contracts signed, nothing," he said. "We're going to have conversations about the future of the market, and we'll entertain proposals that come our way.”

For now, the businesses at the City Market are set to stay through the end of the summer.

Last month, LEPFA's president and CEO Scott Keith told the State Journal that the organization decided not to renew The Waterfront Bar and Grill's lease, which expires at the end of this month. The remaining businesses at the City Market are on month-to-month leases, he said.

Patrice Drainville, the vice president of Simmons Properties, which owns The Waterfront Bar and Grill, said the mayor's office gave the restaurant permission to stay in the City Market through Labor Day.

“They haven’t put that in writing, but that’s what they told us," she said.

Schor said in a statement Thursday that the city met with representatives from the restaurant and suggested a month-to-month lease with LEPFA through the end of the summer. He said the restaurant hasn't accepted the offer.

"We are happy to work with them but need a legal agreement in the form of a month-to-month lease for the summer in order to move forward," he wrote.

The Waterfront Bar and Grill moved into the City Market in 2010 and initially signed a lease for the space. Drainville said poor management has caused the market to wane.

“We’re hoping to work with the city," she said. "We want to revitalize the market. That's what we’ve been trying to to.”

The public hearing for the ordinance will be at 7 p.m. July 9.

Contact reporter Haley Hansen at (517) 267-1344 or hhansen@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @halehansen.