Every Tuesday, the downtown blocks occupying 8th Avenue and Oak Street are transformed from a quiet city park into a cross between a medieval street fair and the aisles of an organic grocery store.
In open-air booths, market vendors display their wares, ranging from fresh fruit and vegetables to exotic herbs and plants.
Catering to the downtown lunch crowd, vendors — some of whom have occupied a spot here since the market opened more than 20 years ago — share a visible sense of community in their efforts. The market has claimed its niche in the downtown Eugene community, sprawling on both sides of 8th Avenue, with black mats to protect the grass and a handful of food booths to satisfy those taking their merchandise home for consumption.
The market also serves as an integral part of the Saturday Market, the nation’s oldest weekly open-air crafts festival, in addition to holding its own event on Tuesdays.
With more than 300 new vendors interested in selling at the market, the need for additional facilities is obvious, market organizers say. With potential merchants offering to sell a wider variety of goods, market organizers are considering expanding the market to provide a year-round facility equipped with refrigeration areas.
Already, with most current vendors operating on less than 30 acres, the market’s business has expanded rapidly. Since 1999, the market’s sales have grown 25 percent on Saturdays and 70 percent on Tuesdays, Farmers Market Director Noah O’Hare said.
To meet the growing need, organizers are planning to construct a new building at the Lane County Fairgrounds that would be shared by the market, the United States and Oregon Departments of Agriculture and the Farm Service Agency.
“The market has a mission, and that is to help the farmers, and the site is a tool,” he said. “The better the site, the better the tool to help the farmers. At the fairgrounds, we’re talking about a 30 to 50 year facility.”
But the expansion is at a standstill because the agriculture departments and the Farm Service Agency have yet to help fund a feasibility study, which would investigate space requirements, develop construction and operating budgets, and pay for drafts of potential facilities.
Without the completed study, O’Hare said, expansion can’t go forward. O’Hare said he was optimistic the expansion could take place, though he was uncertain when.
Even if the expansion is successful, the market will retain its post in downtown Eugene.
“People see what we are now and say ‘don’t leave, we love you downtown,’” O’Hare said. “But when I talk about what we could be, they get excited.”
The benefits of the new facility would include refrigeration capability, 10 acres of parking instead of the limited downtown parking, and a customer base that won’t evaporate when it rains, O’Hare said.
“With the current site, it’s pretty labor-intensive,” O’Hare said, detailing the extensive setup, which includes traffic control, setting up mats for vendors to place their wares on, and organizing parking. “We had to ask ourselves if there would be saving from having a permanent facility.”
Most current vendors of the Farmers Market support the expansion, realizing the growing needs of the market. The majority of the vendors, who operate small farms with only a few workers, have voiced that the building at the fairgrounds would be a great new opportunity.
Triangle Lake resident Clark Wilde has been vending his home-grown produce at the market since it opened in the late 1970s. His booth is decorated with potatoes, apples and garlic French braids ­­ stems braided into a loop and adorned with ribbons or small wildflowers.
Though Wilde also favors the idea of expansion, he emphasized that he would choose to continue at the downtown location.
“I have customers I’ve known for over 20 years,” he said. “I’d stay here. I just think there are more people who want to sell here and don’t have enough space.”
Karen Schultz, of Roseburg-based Sunglo Farms, said the market serves a vital role in the community.
“What is really important is that we are able to provide a facility for local farmers and growers to be able to market their product directly,” she said, adding that the expansion would support that cause.
With expansion hanging in limbo for the present time, O’Hare believes the current market will continue to sell and grow.
“In the meantime, we try to get by managing the space we have,” O’Hare said.
The market will remain open Tuesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. until Halloween and will continue to run in conjunction with Saturday Market on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until mid-November.