Save Eastern Market

Not a lot in the news today -- it looks like work on the site for the temporary building is ongoing, and we hear that there's a good chance Mel Inman's Market Poultry will be operating out of a refrigerated trailer at this weekend's Market!

The third bit in this column from The Hill mentions that Eastern Market Pottery is still having problems finding space to operate between now and when the South Hall is restored -- apparently, the Boys and Girls Club location hasn't worked out yet, and there aren't a lot of options in the neighborhood in which the pottery organization would have the space and facilities they'd need to continue their operations.

According to Voice of the Hill, DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is going to seek federal assistance for the Eastern Market rebuilding from two different sources, a special dedicated appropriation and a grant from the Economic Development Administration. (Be warned that the EDA website is one of the worst Federal websites I've come across... even the about page has little to no accessible information about the EDA.)

Finally, here's a recap of tonight's EMCAC meeting. By far the agenda item that took up the most time came early, the report from Brian Cook of Eastern Market Ventures. He spoke about EMV's efforts over the past few days working with all of the merchants to figure out their needs for the temporary building, and the work EMV has been doing (along with Edge Advertising) to work out a branding and marketing strategy that will help get the Market through all the coming changes. Finally, Cook mentioned the problems EMV is having with the leaseholder in the North Hall -- John Harrod, if we're not mistaken -- sending rent increase letters to the vendors who use the space during the weekend flea market Saturday Market Festival, letters which were sent in violation of the current legislation which defines the mechanism by which any such rent increases are obtained and communicated. Understandably, this last item generated the lion's share of statements by members of EMCAC and the community; when the committed learned that Harrod also hasn't paid the rent for the North Hall to EMV for the past four months (and is operating without a certificate of occupancy), there were quite a few baffled and annoyed utterances.

Other things that came out of Cook's summary:

• There turns out to be quite a bit of controversy surrounding the closing of Seventh Street on weekends. Bill Glasgow feels that there's a significant population of traditional shoppers who won't come to the Market if they can't park nearby, a feeling that was echoed by Ellen Opper-Weiner (former chair of EMCAC). On the flip side, the temporary building site and the placement of the security fencing around the South Hall has taken quite a bit of space from the weekend market vendors, space which needs to be made up somewhere, so there's a recognition that Seventh Street is the solution that's currently workable.
• The Weather Channel has donated notification space on its crawler (the text that scrolls across the bottom of the screen) to the publicity and marketing efforts at Eastern Market, so we should expect to see information on the crawler soon letting people in the region know that the Market is moving forward and open for business.
• Don Denton, Hill resident and manager of the Hill Coldwell Banker office, has donated the back pages of both Voice of the Hill and The Hill Rag for the next few months to Eastern Market merchants and vendors, and has donated a page for a “thank you” letter from the merchants to the community.

After Cook's statements, EMCAC reported on the progress that's being made by the Office of Property Management on the rebuilding and long-term lease issues. The short version is that there's work being done to define the contracting model for the construction management contracts, and that the DC Office of the Attorney General has assigned a staff member -- Sanju Mirsa -- to be the representative for all the issues (of which there are still a few major ones) surrounding being able to offer long-term leases to the South Hall merchants. Finally, we learned that Eastern Market Pottery won't be able to return to the Center Hall of the Market, even after the rebuilding -- the renovation plans always called for that space to be taken up by some of the HVAC equipment, so the potters will be relocated into the basement of the newly-restored South Hall.

There were a few other notable bits of information that finished off the meeting:

• June 5th will be the day that Mayor Fenty comes and unveils a bunch of newly-painted window coverings on the boarded-up South Hall. (While the first window was painted in place, it seems like the rest of the coverings are being done elsewhere, and will be brought to the Market and hung on that date.)
• July 4th is the current tentative date by which the temporary building will be completed and opened for business. There are still a lot of variables at play in that date, though, so by no means is it fixed in stone.
• Lastly, Ken Jarboe (ANC 6B representative) made an interesting suggestion -- that EMCAC find out if it would be feasible to organize and host an event in the South Hall as soon as the roof is stabilized. That might be a very cool event, if it's possible to do it without delaying the rebuilding effort!