I might as well put on the dunce hat and go sit in the corner for the night. Reading the previous posts again as well as the PD aricle and finally realized what is really going in.dredger wrote:Framer, you have to pardon my nextstl skills, but I believe we are talking about what as proposed on the Sappington Market thread in the business group.
Best I can come up with is the link to the correct thread. Alex has a rendering posted from Nov 23, 2010
http://nextstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 3&start=15
This isn't the first time that I have heard that Soulard Market doesn't have local food. As Bonwich stated in another thread, there is a tendency by many to look down on SM because of the resellers. It is my understanding that there is plenty of local food sold at SM by the growers. Let me know if I am incorrect in this.As for the retail component, I don't think the Food Hub will harm the Soulard Market too much as the SM doesn't have local food... Food Hub will serve a different clientele.
In fairness to them, they invested a portion of a past allotment of NMTC in Crown Square.dredger wrote:The question I have in the back of my mind, McCormick Baron seems to partner and come out with these great ideas/renderings and then nothing, zilch, etc. They have successly secured a pot of New Market Tax credits from the Feds and can't seem to find a signature project to get off the ground in St. Louis.
Great post! Soulard is what it is, a microcosm of the city as it is and/or what it's become, it's the only place my rich and poor neighbors shop and we all see each other and say hi...very cool and soulful. Tower Grove and other truly local farmer's markets cater to the middle-upper class and charge and amazing premium as a result...totally different scene, yet both mean a lot to the people that go to them.bonwich wrote:All right, a number of points:
@Roger: We Food people at the P-D questioned that caption and quote, and as it was explained to us, the guy meant that there were dozens (or whatever number) of local farmers way back when, but he's the only one of that group of farmers who's still around.
And it's not the market's fault that perception is that it's all resellers. Talk to the current or previous marketmaster and ask her what her promotions budget (not even mentioning the number of hours she can work each week) is. Anyway, there is no "the market." The thing is run by the City, right now specifically Parks & Recreation.
My personal opinion, based on covering it for at least 25 years, is that trying to turn Soulard into Pike Place or Cleveland or Cincinnati or whatever would ruin it. Y'all have been to Soulard on a Saturday morning. You think it's not popular enough as it is?
Further, all this talk of "local produce" ignores one inconvenient fact: There aren't enough local farmers to go around as it is. You've already got many of them doing 100-mile round trips twice a week just to staff the existing farmers markets (of which, by the way, there are roughly 40 within a 50 mile radius of downtown and at least four within a short bike ride of Soulard). Hell, we couldn't even sustain the downtown market. If you didn't have all those produce brokers, you'd have a very hard time keeping Soulard open more than 2 days a week. And if you add more than a few local farmers, I betcha North City or Tower Grove would suffer.
I'm bemused by paying someone $250,000 just to come up with a "plan" for Soulard. I'd bet there are half a dozen people that I know personally who could clean and paint the existing market, develop a one-year promotional plan, serve as marketmaster full-time for a year and still make change on the order of $100 grand.
The other issue is, as always, our mousefart municipality system. Too many of them are tripping all over each other (and overextending the farmers) because they have to open a market to keep pace with the 87, or however many, other municipalities within an easy drive of them.
On a more global basis, I'm afraid that all this talk of turning Soulard into some sort of foodie (emphasis on the -ie) destination is one of many instances of addressing the problem from the wrong direction. Just what do people think the result would be if, in three years, Soulard Market had a Gerard Craft restaurant and Steve Gontram's new burger joint and a wine shoppe and a new branch of Kenary Park and an herbal pharmacy and, well, you get the picture.
This pretty much illustrates the stupidity of the whole "local" food movement. You're trying to replace a highly efficient food distribution system with hundreds of farmers driving all over the place in pickup trucks, just so yuppies can pat themselves on the back for how "green" they are. It's madness.bonwich wrote:Further, all this talk of "local produce" ignores one inconvenient fact: There aren't enough local farmers to go around as it is. You've already got many of them doing 100-mile round trips twice a week just to staff the existing farmers markets (of which, by the way, there are roughly 40 within a 50 mile radius of downtown and at least four within a short bike ride of Soulard).
Thats why you need to drop the study trying to redo something that doesn't need to be redone and concentrate on getting a few local green thumbs to become truck farmers on the multiple empty lots within the city? Save on all the pickup miles for the yuppiesthe central scrutinizer wrote:This pretty much illustrates the stupidity of the whole "local" food movement. You're trying to replace a highly efficient food distribution system with hundreds of farmers driving all over the place in pickup trucks, just so yuppies can pat themselves on the back for how "green" they are. It's madness.bonwich wrote:Further, all this talk of "local produce" ignores one inconvenient fact: There aren't enough local farmers to go around as it is. You've already got many of them doing 100-mile round trips twice a week just to staff the existing farmers markets (of which, by the way, there are roughly 40 within a 50 mile radius of downtown and at least four within a short bike ride of Soulard).
Getting fresh fruit from South America during our winters isn't very efficient.the central scrutinizer wrote:This pretty much illustrates the stupidity of the whole "local" food movement. You're trying to replace a highly efficient food distribution system with hundreds of farmers driving all over the place in pickup trucks, just so yuppies can pat themselves on the back for how "green" they are. It's madness.bonwich wrote:Further, all this talk of "local produce" ignores one inconvenient fact: There aren't enough local farmers to go around as it is. You've already got many of them doing 100-mile round trips twice a week just to staff the existing farmers markets (of which, by the way, there are roughly 40 within a 50 mile radius of downtown and at least four within a short bike ride of Soulard).
