Shops will be setting up stalls and hawking their wares in Arlington’s downtown next month as the city realizes its dream of hosting a farmers market.
The market will be held every Saturday from March through November, according to a city spokesperson. The city council was told at a Tuesday afternoon meeting that sellers will set up in a city parking lot at the corner of Front Street and Center Street, across from Dream Park.
The market is slated to begin on March 29.
Arlington has been considering a farmers market for a while. Dalworthington Gardens, which has its borders surrounded by Arlington, already has one.
That market is run by Four Seasons Market, the same organization Arlington is partnering with to make its own iteration come to life.
Four Seasons Market, founded by French entrepreneur Vincent Hirth in 2009 to bring European-style markets to North Texas, brings in-season produce to its locations through partnerships with farmers in the area.
The Arlington market will be open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Abby Rudolph, the market director for Four Seasons, said the market, the city and Downtown Arlington Inc. are already working to spread the word and have seen a lot of interest. Getting vendors to fill spots each month shouldn’t be too hard.
“I feel very strongly that as the city has been asking about this and hearing about it, that they will come to the market so the vendors will want to be there,” Rudolph said.
Council member Barbara Odom-Wesley told Rudolph she has one thing she hopes to see at Arlington’s market.
“The last time I was in Europe I was noticing the farmers markets over there and there was one component that I happened to see … and that’s flowers,” Odom-Wesley said.
Rudolph told her florists are common at other Four Seasons Market locations and she doesn’t think it would be difficult to bring in at least one vendor in Arlington.
The city’s partnership with Four Seasons Market is set for five years with options to extend.
Anybody interested in setting up shop at the market can apply at the Four Seasons Market website. Rudolph said she is already looking through more than 250 applications from vendors.
A long time coming
Arlington has been trying for more than a decade to introduce a long-running farmers market to the city.
Dalworthington Gardens Mayor Laurie Bianco suggested last July that Arlington and Pantego partner with her city in a joint venture for a farmers market. That was right after Arlington concluded a feasibility study, and leaders at the time said the city wanted its own market in the downtown or Entertainment District areas.
Surveys told planners that residents preferred Downtown Arlington or a local park for that venture, a wish the selected site will accommodate.
Farmers markets can offer some relief to the difficulty North Texans can have finding fresh and nutritious produce. For 21% of low-income people in the Dallas Fort-Worth area live either half a mile from a grocery store or 10 minutes from a rural grocer, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Rudolph told KERA News last year that Four Seasons Market works to ensure each of its locations bring farm-fresh produce to the table.
“It’s very difficult,” she said. “In the DFW Metroplex, I know we do have a ton of food desert areas. And farmers are usually a little further outside of the Metroplex. So, we kind of co-mingle in some resellers, but also really try our very best to make it farm-to-market for the patrons.”
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