Detroit's Eastern Market gets new life, reinvents - New management, renovations played a major role in its turnaround

Posted on June 26, 2010 - 8:53 am

by JOHN GALLAGHER-FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Going to Eastern Market this morning?

So many are.

Teeming with shoppers each weekend, the 119-year-old public market on Detroit's near-east side now draws up to 40,000 visitors on a busy Saturday.

That's a testament to the attraction's drawing power since just a few years ago the market was drawing losing favor, money and purpose.

Now shoppers come not only for the locally grown fruits and vegetables, but also for the popular breakfast and lunch delis, the wine and antique shops, the deals on flowers and plants and the ever-changing array of new products, like the specialty pierogies introduced this month.

And many come because, well, there's an urban ambience unparalleled in metro Detroit.

Dan Carmody, president of the nonprofit Eastern Market Corp. that operates the city-owned market, said Eastern Market ranks with America's best such operations, including Seattle's Pike Place Market and Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market.

"We're one of the largest, one of the oldest, and I think we're one of the coolest," Carmody said.
New life for Eastern Market

Five years ago, Detroit's Eastern Market remained an orphan within city government, losing money, its reputation in decline, control of it shifting from department to department with no clear mission.

Today, in contrast, it operates as one of the nation's premier public markets.

On busy summer Saturdays, up to 40,000 visitors jam market sheds, buying fruits and vegetables, flowers and even trees, enjoying breakfast or lunch at the many eateries, and shopping for wine, antiques and other goods in the shops.

People may quibble about the reasons for the turnaround, but no one disputes that Eastern Market has emerged as a major success story in a city that badly needed one.

"I think Saturdays on a nice summer day in Eastern Market are the coolest urban experience around a public market in the country," Carmody said last week.

What turned things around?  New model, outside help

The turning point happened in 2006, when the City of Detroit, after years of debate, agreed to spin off the market into a separate nonprofit corporation, much as it had done already with the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The result could be a model for such quasi-public management. The new management system, headed first by planning consultant Katherine Beebe and, since 2007, by Carmody, already has rebuilt two of the market's five sheds, turning Shed 3 into a venue for year-round special events, from auto show previews to fashion shows.

Money from outsiders helped.

• The Kresge and Kellogg foundations have been among funders who have pumped $6 million into the market since the quasi-privatization.

• The Ford Foundation is donating funds toward the next big project, the renovation of the market's Shed 5, scheduled to begin this year.

And the new management has spurred a quest for specialty food vendors to complement the market's basic fruits and vegetables.

Recent product additions include grass-fed pork and beef products and, just in June, specialty pierogies, small pastries stuffed with meat and other tasty bits.

"We've come a long way in the last four years," Edward Deeb, a member of the Eastern Market Corp.'s nonprofit board and a 35-year advocate for the local merchants, said last week.

Beebe agreed.

"The market's much improved. It's a very special place," she said last week.
More to come

The improvements haven't stopped. The Shed 5 renovations, set to begin this winter, will include creation of a community kitchen where cooking demonstrations and specialty classes can be held. And the sidewalk area outside Shed 5 along Russell Street, the market's main drag, will be expanded and converted to a public plaza for arts-and-crafts shows and other special events.

Eventually, in years to come, leaders hope to make Eastern Market a destination at least two or three days a week year-round, not just on Saturdays. And some are thinking even beyond that.

"We want this to be a six-or-seven-day-a-week market," Deeb said.

Of course, the farmers market that the public sees on Saturday morning is just one face of Eastern Market. The district's restaurants and shops are open most days of the week. And the market's many wholesale houses and food processing businesses operate quietly in the background, supplying food to numerous Detroit-area groceries and restaurants the year-round.

Contact JOHN GALLAGHER: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com

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