A new winter Fayetteville Farmers’ Market will soon debut inside a tent located at the south side of the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks property.
Photos: Todd Gill, Flyer staff
If your Christmas wish was for the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market to add a winter market this year, it looks like old Santa Claus has already come through for you.
Market officials today announced the new Saturday market will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. beginning Dec. 15 through March at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, 4703 N. Crossover Road.
“We hope that customers are as excited to purchase local food year-round as they are during the regular season,” said Lori Boatright, Fayetteville Farmers’ Market media coordinator.
The new market, located inside a large tent at the south end of the garden grounds, will include local meats, eggs, baked goods, crafts, and other seasonal items.
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So exciting!!! Locally grown food year-round!
We will be there selling our great cutting boards!!!!! Come see us
Awesome!!
I hate to rain on the parade, because I’m a huge farmer’s market fanatic, but this seems like a super weird, not central location. It’s almost to Springdale. it will be hard for us to get up there on Saturdays. I hope it works for them, I just wish they’d find a city partnership to buy the opo for this endeavor.
A permanent market hall/pavilion is a good idea for part of the WAC lot, if its ever developed. Festy vendors could set up inside and outside when its needed.
You’re right. That would be a fantastic spot for a market if we turn that into public space. I’m still excited about this though, this is great news for Fayetteville.
I can imagine a big open part indoor/part outdoor market hall, similar to what they have in Little Rock, with a handful of permanent vendors or some way to pull local food trucks up to the hall.
When special events are happening on Dickson, the space is rented to the vendors, ala BBBBBQ (if we must keep it), or for other festivals, etc. The rest of the time, the Dickson Street Market is for local food trucks, and mostly open space.
Since we must collaborate with the University, perhaps the Center for Community Design and the architecture/landscape architecture schools could provide design services for the Dickson Street Market pavilion/outdoor space at a much reduced rate.
Include multi-use structures, with the ability for stage performances, lighting, sound, etc.
Use old, now razed, University of Arkansas buildings like Bucchanan Hall as architectural inspiration for the project.
Daylight and restore more of the spring that is down there.
Could A&P funds be used for something like this? I’m sure Little Rock considers their River Market pavilion to be a draw for the city, bringing residents of nearby cities and tourists into the downtown area to visit.
Look to the French Market in New Orleans for inspiration on how to blend public space with market space.
Bring the Winter Farmer’s Market down to Dickson.
Even keep the back 1/3 of the current WAC lot open for parking, and it can still be used for festival spreads.
Creatively use canvas or other materials to enclose certain aspects of the structure for market days, during days like today.
This is the kind of thing our A&P funds should go toward.
I’m way more for utilizing an unutilized building in a prime spot, that building a new one. Especially since there are SO many empty buildings in Dowtown.
This is great! Just wish the location was better.
Just to let people know, there are 2 other YEAR ROUND farmers markets already going on: On Dickson Street in the Nightbird Books breezeway, Greenfork Market, Wednesdays 4pm-7pm. And in the old Greyhound Bus Station on South School Ave, Wrens Thicket Market, Saturdays 9am-noon. Each one has local produce, meats, honey, baked goods, and crafts – several vendors at these smaller venues belong to the Fay.FarmersMrkt as well.