Company picked to upgrade, rebrand Lexington Market

A $436,185 study of Lexington Market is underway to upgrade and modernize the historic landmark on the city’s West Side.

Market officials recently inked a deal with Market Ventures Inc. of Portland, Maine, to help rebrand and rebuild parts of the culinary and cultural bazaar. The upgrades could cost up to $25 million.

Market Ventures was one of five companies who submitted a proposal to conduct a merchandising plan and capital improvement program for the aging marketplace. Their contract began Dec. 1.

Their study is expected to culminate in a report to be issued in about 10 months that will include ideas for improving and growing Lexington Market. The request for proposals for the contract says market officials are also looking for “a mix of vendors and products that will attract a mixed-income, diverse range of customers.”

Market Ventures’ website says it focuses on farmers markets and public markets and describes it as “a specialty urban planning and economic development firm that assists public, nonprofit and for-profit clients with planning, creating and managing innovative food-based projects and programs.”

Its clients include the Milwaukee Public Market and the Reading Terminal Market Corp. in Philadelphia. It has also assisted FoodChange, a nonprofit that is trying to improve the eating habits, health and academic performance of public schoolchildren in New York City.

Casper Genco, executive director of Lexington Market Inc. and also of Baltimore Public Markets Corp., a nonprofit that runs five city public markets but does not include Lexington Market, confirmed the hiring of Market Ventures on Wednesday.

In an email sent Thursday, Genco said the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore would be “sharing the cost of the study with Lexington Market Inc.” The report will be sent to the Lexington Market board once it is completed.

“There are not funds set aside for the results of the study, as is common in these situations,” Genco wrote in the email. “We are to review the plan and come up with funding plan as approved by the Board, City and other stakeholders.”

Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, released a statement Thursday that said the mayor was monitoring the study.

“The need for a study which includes a capital improvement plan and merchandising plan was recommended by the Lexington Market Working group, which was established as a result of the Mayors UniverCity Initiative,” Harris wrote, in an email to The Daily Record.

“The Mayor understands that the Lexington Market is a key component to the revitalization of the Westside.”

The request for proposals was issued by Lexington Market Inc. on April 1. It called for bids to be submitted to Lexington Market officials by July 12 with an award date of early September. Five groups submitted proposals and there were two finalists, Genco said.

The proposal by Market Ventures was approved by the Lexington Market board on Oct. 24, he said.

The RFP stated that professional marketers were needed “to advise the market on methods to transform the existing public market into a more aesthetically pleasing and commercially successful environment.”

The market opened in 1782 as an outdoor marketplace. It eventually converted to indoor-outdoor space and was expanded and updated in the 1980s after a fire. It currently has about 100 vendors in two buildings.

Among other things, the redevelopment study will look at the market’s existing food offerings and consider whether other items, such as more fresh foods, should be added.

The study will also include whether the sale of what it calls “nonfood offerings” — electronics, liquor, fragrance and tobacco, for example — would make sense.

As for financing the redevelopment, the request for proposals states that Market Ventures “should include an expert in financing to assist in developing a strategy to finance or raise necessary capital to undertake the necessary improvement” to Lexington Market.

“Lexington Market seeks to transform into a regional attraction,” it states.

Nearly 2.8 million visitors walk through the market each year, city officials say.