Richland public market might need to be bigger, receive public money

Plans for a small-scale Pike Place-style public market in Richland could get a bit grander after advice from a consultant.

Organizers of the Tri-City Public Market are now looking to build a 40,000-square-foot market, along with 100 residential units, after hearing that the market should be larger to accommodate demand in the Tri-Cities, Adam Brault said.

They’d like to build it where a big hole now sits at the former site of Richland’s community center at 650 George Washington Way.

The advice came from North Carolina-based Aaron Zaretsky, a director at Seattle’s Pike Place from 1977-91, who was hired on the Richland project as part of a feasibility study.

“That was really the time when Pike Place was really revitalized into what we know it today,” said Brault, who has tried for years to redevelop the site.

Earlier plans called for a 25,000-square-foot market, with second-floor office space for &yet, the software company Brault founded.

But that changed after Zaretsky researched area demographics, spent several days in the Tri-Cities and saw the demand as higher than what the plans called for.

That was apparent from the list of 70 possible tenants who had signed on for the market, which would be a mix of locally owned businesses like restaurants and coffee shops, florists, produce and wine sales, beer growler fill stations and butchers, Brault said.

“Everything he’s seen shows that it looks like the market is very strong, and there is room for a public market,” Brault said. “It is known that the area is hungry for independent and local initiatives.”

But Zaretsky also told developers that for a public market to be welcomed by the community, they must receive public money, Brault said.

While Brault agrees that an exclusively private development would not be in the community’s best interest, time constraints had forced them to go that route.

“In order to this right, it’s got to be a real public-private partnership,” he said. “Aaron said there are lots of grants available, but, to demonstrate real local support, lots of them require matching funds.”

A stipulation in the city’s sale of the 2.7-acre property to the Crown Group, which Brault is working with, called for work to start on the project by April 2016, Brault said.

The project also will need a parking garage to accommodate all the traffic. Brault said Zaretsky liked the idea of office space, but also suggested residential as a way for the private investors to recoup their money.

A “pencil sketch” estimate of the cost for the project is between $13 million and $14 million for the market and parking garage, not including the residential area, Brault said.

The market itself could be run as a nonprofit, Brault said.

Developers had a positive meeting with city officials about public funding and extending the deadline, Brault said. But it is now being considered as part of Richland’s waterfront plan.

Richland is paying its own consultant, Roger Brooks International, $85,000 to develop the Waterfront 2040 Master Plan. Work on the plan is scheduled to be completed by Feb. 26, 2016.

“I think he’s going to be a useful resource for Richland in trying to identify what the priorities are,” Brault said.

The city council and staff are still meeting with Brooks on the waterfront plan, so it is too early to discuss what will happen with the public market, said Trish Herron, Richland’s communications and marketing manager.

The next step for developers is to seek local money and develop a business plan, Brault said.

This story was originally published October 5, 2015 at 10:17 PM with the headline "Richland public market might need to be bigger, receive public money."