Broadway Market is shopping for a new image
Proponents of East Side landmark look to thriving operations elsewhere for ways to revitalize market
The city-owned market sits a couple of miles from downtown, just as it has for nearly a century.
Ninety-nine vendors sell ethnic food, fresh vegetables and fruit, baked goods, meats, cheeses and other items. A half-million people flock to the market in a typical year, many coming to hear live music or partake in specially themed festivals.
The market is healthy. Its managers are upbeat about the future.
That’s the scene at the West Side Market in Cleveland’s Warehouse District.
Drive three hours east, and you’ll find another city-owned market steeped in rich tradition that also is a couple of miles from downtown. Yet the future of Buffalo’s Broadway Market is anything but rosy.
Some city leaders say that, without “radical reimagining,” this 120- year-old landmark might not last much past next Easter.
Market managers insist the warnings are overly pessimistic, but even they admit something must be done to resuscitate an East Side icon that — depending on whose figures you believe — has a vacancy rate of 25 percent to 40 percent.
The question is this: How can you lure more shoppers to an aging market located in a declining neighborhood?
Community leaders, city officials and market administrators have been searching for answers for years. Some have been researching –even visiting — public markets in other cities. They’ve been brainstorming among themselves about marketing strategies. A task force soon will be created to review the problem.
While a consensus could be months or even years away, most agree searching for a silver bullet is fruitless.
“There is no instantaneous fix, because the market has been neglected for far too long,” said Russell Pawlak, a member of the market’s board of directors and a respected preservationist.
Troubleshooters are mulling over some ideas aimed at turning the market into a regional attraction
year-round — not just during the busy Easter season. They include:
• Turning it into a showcase for the rapidly growing slow food movement. Slow food promotes food grown and produced locally. It capitalizes on crops, animal breeds and preparation techniques that are authentic to a special region.
• Positioning the market as a mecca for urban gardeners, providing an easy way to sell produce and flowers grown in yards and community gardens.
• Staging a kaleidoscope of events that target a variety of people. Previous plans for physical improvements to accommodate such events include a community kitchen where guest chefs from some of the area’s most respected restaurants would give regular cooking demonstrations. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, once championed that idea.
• Working with the city to retool the immediate neighborhood, creating a “Broadway Market Village.” Vacant, decaying structures that line the streets around the market would be torn down to create attractive public spaces that would create a more open feel. The market’s tired facade also would be upgraded.
“Never underestimate curb appeal,” said Erwin Rakoczy, a Clarence businessman who will sit on the Council’s Broadway Market task force. “People’s perceptions of what something is are formed in the first 10 seconds.”
• Launching a group called “Friends of the Broadway Market” that would seek donations and recruit people to help organize events. In addition to local boosters, it would target “transplants” — former Buffalonians who now live elsewhere. Sophie Baj, an East Side activist who sits on the Broadway Market board, predicted that many people would join.
“Everyone loves the Broadway Market — just like they do the Central Terminal,” Baj said.
‘No one silver bullet’
Market boosters aren’t fooling themselves into thinking that one single strategy will make the facility’s long-term problems disappear.
“There’s no one silver bullet for any of this stuff,” said Rakoczy, who has been involved in founding or strengthening five local farmers’ markets.
One option many community leaders dismiss involves closing the market and reopening elsewhere — perhaps on Buffalo’s developing waterfront.
“The city is going to abandon a white elephant building that would have to be taken care of? I don’t think so,” said Pawlak, a member of Buffalo’s Preservation Board and former president of a group that is restoring the Central Terminal.
In recent months, Baj has researched about 40 permanent indoor markets and outdoor farmers’ markets within a day’s drive of Buffalo, plus several better-known public markets farther away — in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
Baj said most indoor public markets are much smaller than the Broadway Market, which has 56,000 square feet of rentable space in a cavernous 90,000-square-foot structure. Cleveland’s renowned West Side Market, for example, is located in an 81,000-square-foot complex but has only about 21,000 square feet of rentable retail space.
Cleveland’s market focuses on food, said Antoinette Thompson, the city’s assistant director for parks. Shoppers, she said, can buy everything from specialty ethnic food, to different kinds of cheese, baked goods, meats and produce, as well as tobacco products.
“There’s a real variety at the market,” Thompson said.
Cleveland’s continued effort to promote housing in its downtown district also has helped the market, Thompson said.
“A lot of people are moving into the area, and you have people who can walk and do their shopping at the market.”
Buffalo Common Council President David A. Franczyk, whose district includes the Broadway Market, says he has been impressed by visiting the Cleveland version.
“It’s buzzing with activity, and there’s tremendous variety,” he said.
‘Need to start fresh’
Franczyk is reviewing data, prepared by the Urban Land Institute, on public markets. He says he is convinced the Broadway Market can be revived — but only if bold steps are taken.
Perhaps the boldest action Franczyk seeks is the immediate resignation of the market’s entire board of directors. He also has called for replacing the market’s manager. A few board members might be reappointed at a later date, he acknowledged, but only after operations undergo a thorough review.
“We really need to start fresh — with completely new ideas,” Franczyk said, adding that management should change before the city signs a new lease with the market. The old one expired this summer.
Richard M. Fronczak, the market’s manager, repeatedly has defended the board that operates the facility, bristling at claims that it consists of “dinosaurs.”
“We’re open to any new ideas. But reimagining the market is going to require financing from the city,” he said. “We need help from the city to rebuild.”
He also questioned whether some city officials are genuinely concerned about the market’s future. Market managers, he said, are troubled by the city’s delays in approving a lease with a new anchor tenant. Buffalo Check Cashing wants to take over space vacated earlier this year by KeyBank. Market managers blamed delays in City Hall for a recent decision to raise rents by 10 percent, effective Oct. 1, and to reduce security and maintenance.
Reviving the Broadway Market will mean attracting an array of vendors and staging events that will attract customers from far beyond Buffalo’s East Side, said Rakoczy, who grew up in the Fillmore area.
“The population base in that area can’t support the market,” he said.
