Plan for downtown public market inches forward as state hires consultant
The building at the corner of Hanover and Blackstone streets would house a public food market.
By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent
A plan to build a public food market adjacent to Haymarket and the Rose Kennedy Greenway has taken a step forward, though some are now concerned it may be moving too quickly.
Scott Soares, commissioner of state Department of Agricultural Resources, announced at a Tuesday night meeting that his agency had signed a contract with nonprofit consultants to assemble an implementation plan for the market by April 1. The goal, Soares said, was to open the market by the 2012 production season.
An advisory committee of North End, Waterfront, West End and Beacon Hill stakeholders is helping to steer the project. It is working with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on the development of two sites adjacent to the Greenway.
The first, Parcel 9, is the wedge-shaped vacant lot between the Greenway and the Haymarket Pushcart Vendors. The other, Parcel 7, is an underused building between Sudbury and Hanover streets that currently houses the Haymarket MBTA stop, a ventilation system and a parking garage. The first floor of the building has long been designated by MassDOT as the future site of a public food market that would sell local produce, fish, meats and baked goods ? the sort of market many other large cities have long had.
Governor Deval Patrick has pledged $10 million in state assistance to build the market. A previous plan to develop the market in partnership with the Boston Public Market Association was scotched due to the organization?s ties to Housing and Economic Development Secretary Greg Bialecki and his predecessor, Dan O'Connell.
The DAR?s contract calls on the consultant group, Project for Public Spaces, to examine the options for the space and make recommendations. But many committee and community members at the Jan. 4 meeting said it would be foolish to move forward with plans for that site that didn?t also include the upper floors of the building, the future building for Parcel 9 and the adjacent Haymarket.
The upper floors of the Parcel 7 building and all of Parcel 9 will be developed under a separate Request for Proposals, with a new building on Parcel 9 to be designed by David Chilinski, president and co-founder of Cambridge-based Prellwitz Chilinski Associates.
Some felt that the plan for the public market should incorporate use of the broad plaza on the Greenway side of the building, while others insisted the planning should be restricted to interior spaces.
At least one committee member strenuously objected to what he saw as state officials pushing forward with a plan without adequately consulting the group. Claudio Kraus, who owns the gift shop Geoclassics and represents Faneuil Hall Marketplace on the committee, said he felt ?slighted? by the lack of communication.
?You come today, Jan. 4, with your 90-day or 70- or whatever deadline ? three months after we had asked for that, so I feel like maybe our time is being wasted here, and you already predetermined it, and you already decided everything,? Kraus said. ?So you could at least tell us, ?Look this thing is going to happen that way,? all along the process so that we wouldn?t waste our time.?
Soares attempted to reassure Kraus and others that the consultant?s contract only meant they would make recommendations, not that wheels had been set in motion to take the plan toward one predetermined destination. He said that the process would continue to be open to the committee and the community and would proceed through a series of open meetings.
Peter O?Connor, director of real estate and asset development for MassDOT, stressed that the planning was still in a preliminary phase.
?All we know right now is that a consultant has been chosen to develop a business plan for how would a public market operate on the first floor of Parcel 7,? O?Connor turned to Soares. ?That?s it, right??
?That?s it,? Soares said.
Committee members and several of the many neighborhood residents and business owners said it was vital that the market plans be developed in sync with plans for the rest of that building and for Parcel 9. They asked that the process not be tied to an arbitrary three-month timetable to meet the April 1 deadline on the consultant?s contract but be given ample time to take shape through a community process.
?We have the luxury of having enough time to do this in a dynamic equation rather than one process being the given for the other,? said Robert B. O?Brien, executive director of the Downtown North Association. ?Because if this is not done right by either one of us, instead of being the catalyst for each other?s success, we?re going to be the impediment to each other?s success. And I think we ought to be aware of the fact that we can fail again.?
