So first, a recap of today's press conference by Mayor Fenty and Councilmember Wells. We weren't able to go (damn work!), but it seems that the meat of what was announced is:
- the temporary building will, indeed, be on the back of the Hine Junior High lot, will measure approximately 50 by 230 feet, and will house all of the displaced merchants from the South Hall;
- the structure will cost $490,000 and will take 30 days to construct;
- the infrastructure and construction costs will total an additional $988,000, the equipment for inside the building (refrigerators, appliances) will run another $1 million, and it will take an additional 30 days past construction to outfit the building with all the equipment;
- the tennis courts are officially being incorporated into the Hine Junior High School playground lot, for the use of the school during the week and the flea market during weekends;
- Seventh Street SE will be closed between C Street and North Carolina from 6 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays and Sundays.
There's a brief article on the Post's website (along with an awkward hands-on-the-shovel photo!) detailing the groundbreaking, the Mayor's office has distributed a press release with most of the details, and Councilmember Wells has a short weblog entry up about the announcements. With the pace that things have taken to date, I'd assume that the next two months are going to be a bit of a flurry at the construction site -- it'll be interesting to watch!
In other news, it looks like the Peabody School-Within-a-School students' Market artwork greeting cards are now available! They cost $17.50 for a box of ten cards and envelopes; for those of you who know about my addiction to cheese, it makes sense that I'm pretty partial to the card of one of the Bowers Fresh Dairy Products cheese cases. (Oh, and I should warn you: be careful surfing around the website, as it appears that merely clicking an image of a card to see it at a larger size adds that card to your shopping cart! You'll quickly end up with a cart full of all the designs you wanted to look at more closely, so you'll want to clean out your cart before then selecting the designs you want to buy.) (Oh, and I should also thank Oliver Uberti for pointing out the site!)
There are two additional restaurants participating in Monday's Dining Out for Eastern Market, Taverna and The Ugly Mug (both giving 25% of their dinnertime proceeds to the CHCF relief fund).
And finally, speaking of the CHCF fund, this weekend's Market is a good time to see what the organization is doing with the money to support the merchants of the South Hall! New signage will be installed to mark the location of any of the merchants who are now operating under the shed, Market Poultry will be open using a refrigerated food trailer funded by the organization, and a bunch of the merchants will be using new equipment purchased with grants provided by CHCF. It's great to see everyone slowly getting back to business, thanks to the donations of hundreds and hundreds of friends of the Market!