There's quite a bit of news about the progress of the East Hall (the new name for the temporary building being constructed on the Hine Junior High schoolyard lot), all passed on by Gary Peterson. First, the city's order for all the new refrigeration and freezer equipment has been placed; it's anticipated to be delivered in four to six weeks, and will take another week or two to be installed. This puts the prospective opening for the building in mid-July at the earliest, and in early- to mid-August at the latest, but the city is still committed to a July opening so we'll see how it all pans out. Second, while the city paid for all that equipment, CHCF has been asked to help pick up the tab for much of the smaller equipment, and looking at numbers that means that CHCF likely needs to raise another $100,000 or so. So let's keep up the fundraising and get our merchants back indoors!
We received the latest Flea Market at Eastern Market newsletter via email tonight, and are happy to see that it highlights a new advertising campaign which aims to raise awareness throughout the DC metro area that Eastern Market is still open for business. The ads are all designed by Edge Advertising, and aim to help bring back the business that's been lost since the South Hall fire. The same folks are also working on getting the two different official Market-related websites -- EasternMarketDC.com and EasternMarket.net -- updated to reflect the post-fire differences in how everything's operating, so expect to see some changes at both in the next few days.
This seems as good a time as any to remind everyone of our own “Where are the merchants now?” page! It'll remain linked at the top of the left-hand sidebar, and we're doing everything we can to keep up-to-date with information about which of the South Hall merchants are operating outside, what they're stocking, when they'll be there, and what forms of payment they're accepting. Please spread the page's address around to your friends and family -- it's http://www.saveeasternmarket.org/merchants -- and encourage everyone to come visit!
The Flea Market website also has a new version of the exhibitor map which reflects the configuration of the Hine schoolyard now that the East Hall construction has begun.
Finally, at 10:30 AM Sunday morning, Councilmember Tommy Wells will be celebrating the reopening of eight of the South Hall merchants at an event at the Market and will accept the $46,000 contribution being made by DC United to the CHCF relief fund. Victor McFarlane and William Chang, both managing partners of DC United, and Kevin Payne, president and CEO of the organization, will make the presentation -- it's an immensely generous contribution on the part of the team! (We've added the event to the calendar.)