Upcoming Events

3rd Annual Family Farm Day

This is Durham Central Market's premier annual event and we have some great bands lined up plus good eats and drinks for you to enjoy. Y'all come on out and support your market!

Earth Day Durham

April 22nd in Durham Central Park
502 Foster St
1–5pm

This is Durham's FREE annual celebration of Earth Day with food, drink, music, eco demonstrations, and much more. Look here for more information: http://durhamnc.gov/ich/op/prd/Pages/Earth-Day-Festival.aspx

Site Insight

The Finance and Development Committee and the Board are working on choosing which of two sites to focus on, based on the criteria discussed in last month’s newsletter. While they do that work it’s a good time to tell you something about what happens once that choice is made.

We’re looking at leasing an existing building. If we can do that, we’ll have to turn that empty building into a first class store. The team to do that work will include architects, planners and contractors, among others. Our timeline to develop the store includes

• selecting the site,
• finalizing a lease,
• financing the project,
• designing the store,
• securing city permits,
• constructing the improvements,
• equipping the store,
• staffing and training,
• stocking,
• marketing, and
• opening.

After the Board agrees on the site, our first priorities will be to finalize a lease and finance the project. As we found out with the Mangum Street site, borrowing money in these economic times is much harder than it was four years ago. This time, since we’ll be leasing an existing building, our cost to develop the store will be less. It will still be significant, however, because we’ll have to do a lot of work on the building and the site. Getting a loan might be easier than for the Mangum Street location, but it won’t be a slam dunk.

The next step, which we’ll try to conclude about the same time we’re wrapping up the financing of the store, is to select an architectural firm for the design work. The architects will help lay out the store, create the ambience of both the exterior and interior, produce the necessary documents to tell a contractor how to build the improvements, and advise us during construction. In early April five firms presented information on their experience and abilities to Board and committee members, as an initial element in moving forward on this step.

In next month’s newsletter we’ll cover further steps in the process, beginning with designing the store and getting the permits to build the project.

www.DurhamCentralMarket.org