By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The City of Glasgow is accepting bids for construction of a long-awaited facility that would be the year-round home of a local farmers market.
This action is taking place after several years of discussion about options for locations and financing sources. With the assistance of a combination of grants, the dream is finally becoming a reality along West Main Street, on property the city owns between the post office and where construction on a justice center is scheduled to begin early next year. This is the same site for which months of discussion took place on the possibility of a small park and/or amphitheater and, later, an attached farmers market. Though that plan ultimately did not come to fruition for a mixture of reasons, the idea about the farmers market, at least, stayed alive.
In the meantime, the Bounty of the Barrens market is set up on the courthouse lawn on the Glasgow Public Square most Saturdays from the end of April through October, moving to a city parking lot off the outer west side of the square, next to the Commerce Plaza building, when other major events like cruise-ins and the Glasgow Business & Professional Women’s Club’s Market on the Square, take over the lawn. For the colder months, the market moves to the auditorium at the Barren County Extension Service building and reduces the number of days to only first and third Saturdays of each month, but those who sell refrigerated or frozen goods generally need to stay outside to be able to keep an eye on and access their goods.
According to the bid announcement, the work entails development of approximately 1.30 acres, with the primary purpose being to construct a new 3,600-square-foot farmer market. The job includes, but is not limited to, earthwork, roadway/access construction, walkways, underground power, the market itself and other site appurtenances. A prebid meeting is scheduled for Oct. 29, and the deadline for sealed bids to be received is 2 p.m. Nov. 21.
April Russell, city administrator and the city’s grant writer and administrator, said recently the geotechnical surveying has already been completed, so the next step was advertising for bids.
This site is a good location for the market because it is still in the downtown vicinity, just three to four blocks from the square, she said, but it will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and much more accessible to those with mobility concerns, plus it will be safer for kids away from the downtown traffic and such, and it will be an area all their own.
She noted that the market participates in programs specifically to aid older residents, and this will make it more accessible for them as well.
“It will be a summer-winter market, so they can be open all year long,” she said. “And the reason that’s so important is their vendors see a decrease in sales in the winter because [customers] can’t find it. It moves. This will be [that] it’s always in the same spot. You’ll always know where to go to find your farmers market.”
Griffin Botts, who began in the role of executive director for Sustainable Glasgow in August 2023, said the first and main thing he started hearing from the vendors was, “When are we getting our market building?”
He picked up working with city officials on the project, and they had some test plans that had been previously developed because they had to submit that with the grant application.
The plan has been for the building to be mostly one large room with garage-type doors at least on one side that can be raised to provide an open-air ambiance in the warmer months, but with large ceiling fans to circulate the air, but the doors can be lowered and the facility heated for cooler months. Bathrooms will be included as well and a small storage area.
Botts said this format would allow those dairy and meat vendors with refrigerators or freezers, in particular, to back their trucks up to those doors, and they requested some sort of awning that would be over those trucks.
“The goal is really just to house the, sort of, I guess what I would call like the core market vendors. I’d say we have like 15 or so folks that are on the square every Saturday that are super consistent with us,” he said. “And then to also have the ability to have folks set up their tents outside if we have extra vendors that want to come through as guests or something like that.”
Russell said the parking area is likely to be gravel initially, with the focus being on getting the site and building there and making sure they stay within the budgeted grant and city funds, and then they can look at paving later, in the next fiscal year if necessary. It is expected that some portion of that block would still be a grassy area, but the city has no plans to place a park on that property at this time, Russell said.
The city will still own the land and facility but it would have a lease agreement for a nominal amount with Sustainable Glasgow, which is the nonprofit organization that coordinates and operates the market.
“The city is 100 percent building this to give Sustainable Glasgow a home,” Russell said. With agriculture being as important as it is in Barren County, “it’s only fair they have a home here. The city supports that.”
She said it’s very clear that the grant funds received are meant for a farmers market.
The Kentucky agriculture development grant application required that the city also get financial support from the ag development boards in each of the counties where the vendors are based – in this case, Barren, Allen and Hart counties, she said. The Allen County board provided $2,500; $10,000 came from Hart County and Barren County’s board put in $70,000 of its funds toward the project, Russell said. Then, after a presentation to the state board at one of its meetings this summer and a subsequent vote at that meeting, the city was awarded a $250,000 grant. The city has to match that amount, she said, and it’s in the budget.
“Sustainable Glasgow and Bounty of the Barrens have a really good track record,” Russell said. “They’re a strong community partner.”
She said representatives from the organization were with her for every pitch and were great.
“That way I didn’t misspeak,” Russell said. “I don’t speak fluent agriculture.”
She said this facility will provide Sustainable Glasgow with the opportunity to expand its other activities, too.
Botts said that although the grant application specifies that the primary purpose would be the market, their goal would be to have additional events as well.
“I would love to be able to host more events where the farmers can engage with the community, so we’ve talked about being able to have like cooking workshops, being able to have, you know, special events throughout the year, maybe like plant, flower arranging, because we have a lot of flower vendors, so, just finding new ways to use that as, like, a community hub,” he said.
He said he and the vendors are really getting “pumped” about it now that it’s getting closer to becoming a reality.
“We had really great feedback from the state and all the counties that we visited,” he said, and the ag development committees were excited for them. The farmers are getting superexcited, because it means, among other things, that they won’t have to lug as much equipment around to set up and tear down each time and they won’t have to be out in the elements, Botts said.
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