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A Market-Driven Downtown?
Would a New Haven investor buy into Portland model?
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Business New Haven
3/4/2002
By: Michael C. Bingham
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Is there a public marketplace in downtown New Haven's future?
Two years ago consultant Michael Buckley from Ernest & Young wowed New Haveners with visions of a downtown that could with sufficient capital investment.
That vision included more upscale and vibrant retail mix including specialty boutiques and restaurants to attract visitors and shoppers from suburban communities and beyond. It also included a public, or farmer's, market.
That concept of a large public space where individual farmers and gourmet food vendors lease spaces attracted lingering interest. So for its February 22 annual meeting in the former Conran's/Yale Co-op space, the Town Green Special Services District invited Theodore Spitzer, principal of Market Ventures Inc. and one of the creators of the Portland (Me.) Public Market, who discussed that city's successes and not-quite-successes in getting a downtown public market up and running.
Of course, the differences between New Haven and Portland are dramatic. With nearly twice the Maine capital's 63,000 residents, New Haven is a racially heterogeneous community with a significantly higher poverty rate and attendant social stresses compared to its northern neighbor.
Indeed, some might say the Elm City already has a downtown public market in the presence of Chapel Square Mall, whose two dozen-odd merchants fill a key shopping need for urban-dwellers with limited transportation alternatives.
The Portland market, opened in 1998, was modeled on successful public markets in Seattle, Vancouver and Philadelphia. It is open daily year-round, attracting Mainers from up to 60 miles away (and tourists from points more distant) with fresh produce, baked goods, seafood, flower vendors and sit-down gourmet eateries.
The Portland vendors, almost exclusively independents and most locals, make a serious, long-term investment in their public-market spaces. And, as Spitzer noted, not all have been successful.
Spitzer said the initial retailer investment in Portland was about $49,000 to open the doors. Annual sales for vendors averaged just under $250,000, he said. Public-market customers, Spitzer said, are shoppers with “sophisticated tastes” who spend an average of $22 per visit to the market.
What would it take to make a project like this happen in New Haven's downtown?
“Without a long history, the odds are stacked against having a brand-new market that's wonderfully successful on its opening day,” acknowledges Town Green executive director Scott Healy. Still, “An early step would be for those in the city who believe this might be a worthwhile undertaking to come together and develop some type of collaborative organization” - Healy shuns the word “committee” - “that would spearhead funding for the first part of it, which would be a feasibility study.”
Following that, Healy says, “If the city, or [whatever] entity becomes the cheerleader for the project, decides to take it on, then it becomes a matter of securing funding to implement it.”
Spitzer noted that part of what made the Portland project successful was its private financing in the form of a major financial contribution from philanthropist Betty Noyce, divorced wife of Intel co-founder Robert Noyce. That support has allowed the $9 million Maine project to operate virtually debt-free, minimizing overhead.
“A market that can get by and pay for its expenses once it starts up is fairly remarkable in this day and age,” Healy observes. Nevertheless, Healy says Town Green directors are reviewing the organization's annual budget to determine whether it might spearhead the effort to take a closer look at the feasibility of a public market for the Elm City.
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