Halifax Farmers’ Market Moved To Make Way For Transportation ‘Living Lab’
HALIFAX — The Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market is leaving its waterfront home and transitioning to an outdoor market in the summer and a modified indoor market in the winter.
The move is happening so the Halifax Port Authority can transform the market’s current home into a “living lab” for the transportation industry.
Right now, the market operates in a large, warehouse-style building on Halifax the waterfront.
The Halifax Port Authority owns that building and has long considered the space “underutilized.” Nearly a year ago, it started seeking an independent tenant or operator that could take over the building’s day-to-day operation.
“Ideally, we would have liked to see it turn into some kind of urban hall or something like that,” Port spokesperson Lane Farguson says.
That plan was going well until the Covid-19 pandemic struck Nova Scotia in March.
On March 14, the Port Authority was forced to shut down the market and Farguson says “it was around that time that we started to see the plans for the tenant operator evaporate.”
The market has since reopened, however, it’s still under strict public health restrictions and Farguson says it’s just not viable in its current home.
“The challenge is that we just don’t have the traffic during the week to make it a sustainable, seven-day-a-week enterprise. So that beautiful, big building on the waterfront is sitting largely empty for most of the week,” he explains.
To free up that space, the Port Authority will move the market a short distance away, to Pavilion 22, during the winter and shoulder seasons.
Pavilion 22 is the primary birth for cruise ship traffic during the summer months and is where most cruise ship passengers disembark. It’s located on the same property as the current market, slightly to the south.
“It’s a better use of that space, which would otherwise be sitting empty at this time of year anyway,” Farguson says.
In the summer, the market will move outside to the parking lot in front of its old home. The Port Authority will install a permanent cover over the lot equipped with electricity and amenities for vendors.
The market will operate out of that lot on the weekends, while during the week it will remain a covered parking lot.
Farguson did not give firm numbers for how many vendors Pavilion 22 or the new covered parking lot can accommodate.
Once the market moves, Farguson says the Port Authority plans to transform its current home into “The PIER,” a kind of innovation hub centred around the transportation industry. (PIER is short for Port Innovation, Engagement, and Research).
“The goal of this is to create sort of a living lab that allows for the flow and sharing of ideas — to come up with solutions that will help to advance the transport industry here in Halifax,” Farguson says.
The Port Authority hasn’t said which companies will anchor The PIER but Farguson says it will be home to terminal operators, shipping lines, rail operators, and companies operating in the digital space.
“Those marine and transport players that are in the port, you know who they are,” Farguson says.
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].