CLEVELAND — Behind the scenes of the hustle and bustle of Cleveland's West Side Market is an advisory board of 21 community members that includes local restaurant owners, politicians, and market vendors themselves, all helping to propel the 10-month plan.
“Obviously West Side Market is a beloved Cleveland institution, it's an amazing asset to the community. And so we want to not just hand it over, but come up with a very strong plan for how it will be effective in the new regime that's created," consultant Ted Spitzer told me after the board's most recent meeting on October 6.
Spitzer, who works for development firm Market Ventures, is a nationally-known market consultant. He's written a book on public markets, helped improve markets across the country, and he's even helped launch markets. Over the past few months, Spitzer has conducted interviews with all of the market's vendors, along with performing nearly 450 customer surveys over a three-day period.
I first asked him how tall a task it is to make the changes the surveys revealed, given the difficulty of transforming the market physically.
“The essence of what the market is, fresh food shopping, is so critical to the market's authenticity. So we don't want to, by any means, take that away. But a lot of a lot of people want to eat when they come to a market, and when you visit other markets you see that. There's almost no place to sit here, and there's not that much prepared food. So we're thinking about how do we layer on new elements, without taking away any of the old," Spitzer says.
Turns out, that's what current customers want. The top four things on their wish list are:
- More prepared foods
- More ethnic foods
- More locally grown produce
- More beverages
The survey also found most shoppers to be white, upper-to-middle class, and aged between 50 and 59. They typically buy from 3 to 4 vendors, with eat-in products accounting for 42% of purchases, while take-home purchases scored a 94%.
"I've had the opportunity to sit down with every merchant, learn more abut their business, how things have been going in the past and where they are today, and what their ideas are for the future," Spitzer also remarks about the vendor interviews.
Those interviews show shared and conflicting concerns. Amongst the shared concerns:
- the physical upgrades to the market
- need for more seating
- Improved diversity among foods stands
At the top of the conflicting opinions are market days and hours of operation.
Some argue for more flexibility, while others standing firm on consistency.
This is not the first study of its kind the market has seen. I asked what makes this one different from the rest.
"It's really importantly there's an opportunity for both public investment, city investment in the building that's willing to invest, and interest amongst the philanthropic community, and what they've been saying for 10 years. Is that they will invest in West Side Market, but not if it's a city-run market," Spitzer explains. "So hopefully through our process, with a good plan, and making this transition, and it will open the doors to some capital dollars to make some of these things possible."
Because this survey was only for shoppers the market already attracts, we asked the market spokesperson if the master plan will do any surveys for non-market shoppers. They responded with the following statement:
We decided that, between the survey data from the 2019 online survey data and focus groups (the data from which is integrated in the Revitalization Plan) and the diverse perspectives on the committee, we are unlikely to learn anything from additional surveying that we don't already know and decided not to invest more resources in additional surveying at this time.
As for next steps, the advisory board is working on a new mission statement the market will filter everything through.
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