As Saskatoon changes plans for farmers market building, operating group plans to find new home

The way the City of Saskatoon is responding to a leaky roof repair at its farmers market building has prompted the president of the group that operates in the building to say his group is officially looking for a new home.

The city announced on Friday that it would be cancelling a request for proposals it had put out for tenancy in the building once the Saskatoon Farmers' Market lease comes up at the end of the May.

The Farmers' Market is a cooperative group that currently runs the farmers markets in the city-owned building.

We are going to focus on finding a new home.- Adi Ramachandran, president of the Saskatoon Farmers' Market board

Instead, the city will be extending the group's lease until the end of the year and the building will close for repairs for three months in early 2020.

"Awarding the lease to a tenant, only to close the building for a lengthy period, would be unfair," a city news release said.

The Farmers' Market had previously been weighing the options of finding a new location or staying where they were, in light of the city's push for the building to be open six days a week rather than three.

Points of contention

The days of operation had been a contentious issues for the group.

The Farmers' Market board president, Adi Ramachandran, said the group is not entirely ruling out staying in the city-owned building in the future, but the city's decision to put a hold on the tenancy proposals added too much uncertainty on an already uncertain situation.

"The [Farmers'] Market has been weighing the options of leaving, finding a new location as opposed to staying here. And I would say what happened has decisively shifted our strategy," Ramachandran said.

"We are going to focus on finding a new home so we can seamlessly move to a new home either before our lease expires or right after."

If not there, where?

Ramachandran said they're not ruling out any future locations, and is pleased the Farmers' Market has time to find a good spot.

It could be indoors, outdoors or a hybrid, he said.

Currently, the Farmers' Market lease is only $10 per year as a subsidized lease, Ramachandran said, because it has community value and is a non-profit.

Do they have enough money to find a building as big as their current spot?

"I'm not willing to discuss that at this point," he said.

Vendors like Joe Obiraj and Kerry Kelly have previously told CBC they would like to stay in the current building.

Other proposal nixed too

The Saskatoon Farmers' Market was one of two groups that submitted a proposal to lease the building, and the other group has not been identified.

Ramachandran said it was his group that brought the roof leaks, as well as potential mold, to the city's attention and knows that it's a priority for the roof to get fixed.

"I'm glad they're doing it. I wish they would have done it earlier," he said.