CLEVELAND — It's been a little over a month since the West Side Market transitioned to new management on April 24. The iconic location was run directly by the city of Cleveland — which still owns it — but it's now being operated by the Cleveland Public Market Corporation.
Vendors have generally positive reviews of the new leadership, but still desperately want the regular power outages the market has experienced to be fixed. On Friday, the CPMC Executive Director Rosemary Mudry told 3News that, over the last month, they got their team of seven members established, gave the market a deep cleaning, and laid down protocols for better communications with vendors.
They're set to launch an electronic newsletter next week, and soon after will come a mass texting service for the market's vendors. Mudry also says they will be kicking off a chef series in June to enhance the customer shopping experience and teach new recipes, and they'll additionally be setting up a summer pop-up patio outside.
President of the United West Side Market Tenants Association Don Whitaker told WKYC he's liked the new management so far, but wants them to fix the finicky electrical system, which has had issues for years. He says there have been about five power outages at the market this year alone, losing his vendors precious business and product.
"It is challenging," he added. "On the 20th of May, we had one, and we lost almost three hours of sales. That's always challenging. I mean, it's 2024. It's about time that there's a lot of power in this building, and that it's all backed up correctly."
CPMC Director of Marketing Patrick Evans sent 3News the following statement addressing the outages:
"Cleveland Public Market Corporation is committed to providing our merchants with the best environment in which to conduct their business. We take the ongoing power challenges seriously, and are working to address them across multiple fronts. In the short-term, we've created a merchant communication system that allows us to stay in constant contact with merchants in the event of an outage, so that they can take appropriate actions to protect their product. We are also prioritizing the installation of surge protection measures to increase power resiliency this summer, while partnering with Cleveland Public Power to reduce the number of outages overall. Major long-term power resiliency measures, including the installation of a back-up generator, require heavy construction work and are included in the existing masterplan."
Whitaker told us the last outage was on Memorial Day. He wants the market's energy provider to be switched from Cleveland Public Power — which is operated by the city — to another provider, and he also wants CPMC to purchase a backup generator for the market.
CPMC says it plans to get a backup generator for the market in the future, but there's no timeline for when that will be installed. Per Mudry, it's a part of the $60 million masterplan for the market that they're currently raising money for.
3News asked Mudry what she thinks about some tenants wanting to change the market's energy provider.
"That's not currently under discussion right now," she answered. "Our focus is working with Cleveland Public Power to better the reliability and think through solutions to prevent issues.
"Cleveland Public Power serves this general area. They're the majority provider, but also, this is a city-owned building, and CPP is the city provider. We're working through short-term solutions, but I don't have anything that's concrete to share right now."
Cleveland Public Power's marketing manager provided the following remarks about the outages on Friday:
"On Monday afternoon, Cleveland Public Power responded to an outage resulting from high winds and a downed wire that affected approximately 500 customers from 2:47 p.m. to 5:24 p.m. Within a few hours CPP completed repairs and power was restored. CPP is actively placing a majority of this circuit underground, which will reduce the risk of weather-related outages, with completion scheduled in June."