Feature Stories
Farmers Market Comes to Towne
by Steve Propes
For the past ten years, the Long Beach Towne Center has filled an important niche in Long Beach area shopping and entertainment needs. There’s the theater, more than a few eating places with a wide variety of cuisine and, of course, a variety of window shopping locales.
As of May, get ready for the newest shopping opportunity. According to Harbor Area Farmers Market Manager Dale Whitney, a Tuesday afternoon market will open up in the parking area between Starbucks and Lucille’s Smokehouse.
The market, which has been wildly successful in almost every area it has established itself, has had a uniquely hard time taking root in the east side of Long Beach. Whitney hopes the fourth time will be the charm.
“From 1996 to 2001, we had a market at Wardlow Road and Norwalk Blvd., but the center had a draconian approach to parking. The owner wouldn’t let us park out in front of the market, so I had to hire three people to direct the traffic around the lot to reserve parking for the stores. It was stupid, and after four years, it went down with parking problems.”
In the summer of ’98, a market set up on Viking Way in conjunction with entertainment bookings, but the events weren’t extended for a second season.
More recently, Whitney tried a Thursday market at the Long Beach Health Department parking lot on Grand Avenue near Willow and Redondo, but because it was tucked away out of sight from passing motorists, it was moved to North Long Beach, where it is apparently thriving.
The only thing that isn’t clear about this new market is the exact date it will open. “Sometime in May is what we agreed on,” said Whitney, about his negotiations with Vestar, the company that runs the Towne Center.
“I’d like to do the first day in business and grand opening day a month after. My tendency would be May 18, so I’m going to shoot for that date.”
Whitney described the process. “The Fifth District Council office approached us about a year ago or even more and recommended some spots that weren’t very workable. Then they contacted the shopping center, which had expressed interest. We had a meeting on March 10, and we kept it going all year,” but until recently, “we were not able to get all the pieces in place. Things got interesting in October, ‘when they said let’s do it now.’”
However, Whitney didn’t want to do a trial market, thus the projected May opening. “The market will stretch to the southern end of the street to Lucille’s Smokehouse. Probably 25 vendors will show up. Parking will probably be better south of Lucille’s, but parking shouldn’t be a problem. The Fifth is the least dense district with a lot of older folks and not a lot of large families.”
It was conceived as a seasonal market to remain open through October only. In future years, it will most likely begin in April and will operate on Tuesdays from 5 to 8 p.m., with access to the area afforded to the vendors from 3 to 9 p.m.
Whitney wants to draw from a large geographic base. “I’m not relying on a strong response from the Fifth itself, but more from the close proximity to the 605 and the shoppers who come to that center from that whole area. I’m hoping to draw off the freeway. It’s a very popular regional shopping center.”
To reinforce his point, Whitney quoted Robert Shuler from the Crystal Cathedral, who once observed “In Southern California people don’t measure distance in miles, they measure distance in stop lights.” If that’s the case, from the 605 Freeway off-ramp, there’s but one traffic light between the market and the potential customer.
Other Harbor Area Farmers Markets in Long Beach are held on Thursday from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in Bixby Knolls, at Atlantic Ave & E. 46th St.; on Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in CityPlace at Fifth St. downtown and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the parking lot of the Alamitos Bay Marina on E. Marina Dr.
For more information, go to www.goodveg.org.
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