The Market: A landmark in flux

Originally published Saturday, June 21, 1997

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Coast to coast, Seattle is sold as the home of the famous public market where likably pushy vendors throw salmon around and farmers display gorgeous fruits and vegetables.

The late architect Victor Steinbrueck, who led the citizens movement in 1971 to preserve the Pike Place Market, wrote, "Because there is no better place to shop for the best fresh produce, for out-of-the ordinary foods, and for inexpensive goods of all kinds, the Market is a prime shopping area for low-income people as well as for gourmets of every economic level."

But nearly 30 years later, a furor has broken out over the future of the Market. Farmers want more space, craft and flower sellers don't want to lose what they have, and Market managers are struggling to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive world.

The debate begs the question: Who exactly is buying the fresh fruits and vegetables for sale at Market stalls?

Not the tourists who throng there, an informal survey found. And not many Seattle natives, either.

"One reason I don't eat lunch there very much is I'm a native of Seattle, and there's just too many tourists there," said Terry Hanlin, who works one block north of the Market and remembers shopping there for fresh food years ago with her mother.

Like Hanlin, locals who go to the Pike Place Market, especially during the summer, find themselves bumping bodies with crowds of tourists.

Also, the Market is no longer the only place in town where fresh fish and high-quality fruits and vegetables can be found. Neighborhood stores have upgraded their produce and seafood, offer plentiful parking, and most are open 24 hours. Genuine farmers markets abound in many neighborhoods.

Last week, the Market's governing body decided to recommend giving more space to farmers at the expense of craft sellers and flower peddlers. The issue will be decided by the Seattle City Council.

The Market's managers argue that its historic mission is a farmers market and farmers should be given priority to sell their produce. Flower and craft sellers protested the proposed change with a one-day strike June 21.

Hanlin, an office manager of a nearby accounting firm, said she does not buy her produce at the Market because she takes the bus and doesn't want to carry groceries. Besides, the produce and fish at her local Safeway suit her just fine.

But Hanlin said she does Christmas shopping at the Market, buying ceramics and a hand-painted sweater. "You get stuff there you can't get somewhere else," she said.

Kyle Capp, a San Diego librarian visiting the Market last week, said it was "really beautiful" and he loved "the floral displays."

But the tourist quickly added: "One thing I don't like is it seems overrun with tourists. You're walking around, you have people bumping into you. That was kind of a turnoff. I thought if I were to live here, I would not take the time to come here and be among all those tourists."

Adam Service, a Magnolia resident who works downtown, was browsing at Left Bank Books in the Market at lunchtime last week.

"I don't come down here very often," he said. "I stay on the borders -- the magazines and books. I try to stay away from it just because of the tourists, but there's neat things down here."

Shelly Yapp, executive director of the Pike Place Preservation and Development Authority, concedes that the neighborhood grocery stores and farmers markets pose a real competitive challenge to the Pike Place Market's food sales.

"You used to buy all kinds of stuff down here that you never saw in grocery stores, but that's all changed," she said. "A couple years ago, we were real concerned, because we saw some decline starting to set in in produce stands."

But Yapp said the Market is meeting the challenge, helped by its colorful atmosphere, the personal contact with knowledgeable vendors, a focused marketing program, and especially the growth of downtown jobs, apartments and condos.

"I think people would probably agree we have seen a drop in local customers," Yapp said. That's one of the reasons the market is concentrating on wooing downtown workers and residents.

Downtown housing units grew from 9,028 in 1989 to 12,351 in 1997, according to the Downtown Seattle Association Information and Resource Guide. And another 416 new condominium units and 560 rental units were under construction in 1997.

About 150,000 people work downtown, said Lucinda Payne, marketing director for the association.

The Market has vigorously promoted its new organic produce market that sets up in the street on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Yapp said: "We are trying to keep information in front of people, particularly people who live and work in the downtown area, so they constantly know what we've got that's fresh, that's new. The reality is there isn't anything in a supermarket that's as fresh as what you can buy from a farmer here."

According to development authority figures, the number of farmers at the market has varied from 96 to 129 over the past 10 years.

In 1997, there were 114 farmers. But while the total number of farmers was down, the number of days they sold was at an all-time high: an average of 82 days.

The authority is pleased with that trend, but it has expressed concern about what the farmers are selling, with vegetables on the decline and fruit and flowers dominating.

The sales reflect the interest of tourist shoppers.

Tourists don't buy much produce, except cherries or other fruit that they can eat as they walk, Yapp said. They tend to buy souvenir items, flowers and fish. About 40 percent of the Market's fish sales are to out-of-towners, merchants say.

John and Lois Dietz of Prospect Heights, Ill., fell in love with the Market on their first visit there last week. "It's awesome, it's incredible," Lois Dietz said. "Very international," John Dietz said. The Dietzes had a salmon shipped to their son in Illinois.

"The reason we're attractive to visitors is because we are a genuine local working market," Yapp said. "It's a matter of maintaining the balance."

But the juggling act to maintain that balance is tricky, and lately has left behind some bruises.

Yapp said the Market has made a real effort to improve the parking situation for locals. There is a garage that has free parking for three hours on Wednesdays with a newspaper coupon, $1 parking in the evenings after 4 p.m., and free parking before 10 a.m. with a validation sticker on Saturdays.

But many locals, perhaps unaware of these parking discounts, still perceive parking as an issue.

Outside the Queen Anne Thriftway last week, Ann Bieri, a writer, said she rarely shops for produce at the Market.

"Just because it's so much easier going here," she said. "It's so hard to park down there. I mostly take out-of-town visitors down there."

Joseph Monda, manager of Pike Place Flowers at the corner of First Avenue and Pike Street, thinks that the successful effort of the Market and the city to drive out prostitutes and drug dealers from his corner has increased sales at the Market in the past few years.

"People were afraid to walk down Pike Street," he said.

Monda said native Seattleites don't patronize the Market nearly as much as people who have recently moved to the city from the East Coast.

Pete Moores, who has sold produce at various stands in the Market the past 10 years, said: "It's gotten slower the last five years. A lot of the locals find it's too much of a pain . . . to shop here. They don't want to mess with tourists and the parking. All the QFCs, Thriftways are jumping up. They have more options."

But not all locals let the tourists and other hassles get them down.

Michael Hoffman, a Capitol Hill resident who is on paternity leave from his job in a photo developing lab, shops for food a couple of times a month at the Market.

"A lot of the produce is a lot nicer than what you can get in the supermarket and a lot of it is just for the social atmosphere. You get to know people down here," Hoffman said.

Joe Pine, retired head chef for Vito's Restaurant, has been coming to the Market for years.

"I know most of the people around here," Pine said. "I come down here two or three times a week."

Pine said he doesn't want to see the Market change drastically and particularly wants to keep flower peddlers in place.

"I like to see them selling everything. That's what a market is for anyway," he said.

Magnolia resident Mary Burt is a member of the Pike Market Senior Center and volunteers there as well. She comes to the Market about once a week and buys vegetables and fruits. She could buy her produce at the supermarket in Magnolia, but "they're just so pretty here. You feel like you're part of an event. To come down here is more exotic than shopping at QFC. I feel like I'm in France."

But Burt added, "I don't come as much in the summer because of the tourists."

Yapp said 100 percent of the Market's promotional budget is directed at local residents. Besides running ads in the newspaper, the Market sends out "fresh sheets" four times each summer to 10,000 downtown residents.

Despite the stiff competitive challenge faced by food sellers, the Market is surviving, she said.

It breaks down its sales into mercantile, food and dining. The food category makes up about half of all sales.

"Except for the mercantile category, our sales increases in 1997 exceeded the Puget Sound region's in comparable categories," Yapp said.

Other cities have failed to protect traditional markets. In San Francisco, the once bustling fish market known as Fisherman's Wharf has no fishing industry today other than the netting of live tourists.

"Historically, the case in public markets if they lose their local customers as their lifeblood and food as their base, they ultimately don't survive," Yapp said. "They become Fisherman's Wharf."