Presque Isle looks to emulate Boston,
Fredericton with local market space
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — City advocates are hoping a permanent public market space will help area farmers expand their sales and revitalize the downtown. But first there are cost and design dilemmas to surmount.
Since the late 2000s, community leaders in Presque Isle have wanted to build a public market — similar to, if smaller than, the Quincy Market in Boston or the Boyce Farmer’s Market in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
“It’s a destination,” said Patty LeBlanc, the former owner of Winnie’s Dairy Bar and a member of the city’s downtown advisory committee. “At the market in Fredericton on Saturdays you can have hot breakfast, and buy from farmers, artists and craftspeople.”
The idea for Presque Isle’s Riverside Public Market is already partly a reality. Since last year, food and crafts vendors and farmers have sold their products on Friday afternoons in the summer under a former military tent near the Presque Isle Stream, where the Phair Hotel and Bangor and Aroostook Railroad depot once stood. The military tent was surplus picked up for free by the local police department.
A group of vendors also sells on Saturdays at the Aroostook Centre Mall on the outskirts of Presque Isle’s urban area.
The city is moving forward with a plan for a permanent public market.
In 2009, the city commissioned an estimate by the contractor Sewall Company, which projected costs of $166,000 for a post-and-roof structure more than 100 feet long and 30 feet wide, with no walls, power, heating or restrooms.
To some, that is too much for too little. “I felt that seemed high for what it is — not a full building,” Scott Violett, an investment advisor with Barresi Financial and member of the revitalization committee, said this week. “That should be a $60,000 building, tops.”
Some farmers and crafts vendors also think such a structure could either be more affordable or more durable, with walls.
“I’d like an enclosed building, but maybe not 80 feet long,” said Constantino Freitas, owner of the Work and Play Farm in Fort Fairfield, who sells at the Friday market. “I think you could build an enclosed structure with $80,000.”
If nothing else, the walls are needed to block the “hellacious winds” that sometimes blow through the tent, he said — echoing a recurring complaint from some of the other vendors.
Whether or not the structure has walls, it won’t necessarily cost $166,000, and could be less, said Kim Smith, Presque Isle’s grant writer.
The $166,0000 “includes engineering costs and contingencies; you never know when you build anything,” Smith said.
Smith and other members of the revitalization committee are reviving their efforts now after receiving two grants totaling $80,000 toward the cost of constructing a new permanent structure.
The largest grant — $75,000 from the Freeport-based Elmina B, Sewall Foundation — was awarded in June. The only constraint is that the city has to break ground within a year to get the funding. There are no constraints on the recently awarded $5,000 grant from Farm Credit East.
The city has requested proposals from area contractors on design and construction for a new structure, with bids anticipated as early as next week.
“City Council is a little concerned about the price,” Smith said. “They want us to move forward, have a design, and see if we can get some estimates that are lower.”
The pursuit of a public market space is part of a greater goal, for a vibrant downtown Presque Isle.
“We want to make riverside a destination and Main Street a destination,” Smith said. “Farmers markets not only increase fresh produce in people’s diet, which is important if you want to fight obesity and cardiovascular disease, but people will visit other stores while they’re there and that’s important.”
Part of the challenge will be making the public market a destination unto itself, especially if the new space isn’t enclosed, said glass artisan Lisa Obstfeld, who sells at the Friday market and occasionally visits Fredericton’s Boyce Market.
“Maybe [the city] should go for more grants to build an actual enclosed structure,” said Obstfeld.
