Urban Marketplace of products & services from Black business owners whose mission is to serve, promote, and enrich the communities in which they live.
Urban Marketplace of products & services from Black business owners whose mission is to serve, promote, and enrich the communities in which they live.
The indoor farmers market was only downtown at 27 Simcoe Street North for just over a year and a half. Owner Alexis Kaufman says there were two reasons for the move. One of them was feedback from clientele. Whether that was parking, safety, availability of other things to do. While lack of shoppers was one reason, Kaufman says another was that the building was simply too big and not what vendors wanted. Unfortunately, none of our community farms were interested in being in that location downtown. Logistics lead, deliveries, again, back to the same, Oshawa City Councilor Rick Kerr is quite familiar with businesses moving out of downtown. He says the business model didn't quite fit the need for the downtown community, which wanted to walk in grocery store, not a farmers market. I think for the majority of people downtown where they can walk and get fresh produce and all the rest of that stuff, I think it was a stronger business model. And I think that kind of pushed the urban market towards considering a different market for what they want. Urban market is just days away from opening its new location at Simcoe and Batra Streets. The property is much smaller, but Kaufman hopes that moving outside the downtown to a more populated area will draw in more shoppers. North Oshawa is booming. That is the Mecca, that is where people want to be, and it will be a significant powerhouse for Oshawa. In Oshawa, reporting for the Chronicle, I'm Ryan Vieira.
