Equity as an Intention
How public markets can support local business and lift up nearby neighborhoods
Last November, Lexington’s Julietta Market opened in a 93-year-old historic building called Greyline Station on the corner of North Limestone and Loudon Avenue. Equal parts public market, small business incubator and instigator of equitable economic development, Julietta Market hosts and supports a variety of small business people and provides goods and affordable fresh food not just to visitors from other neighborhoods, but to neighbors nearby.
Named for Lexington civil rights leader Julia Etta Lewis, Julietta Market grew to work in tandem with the Night Market that was hosted on a side street nearby starting in 2013. It began as a small, once-a-month pop-up featuring arts & crafts vendors, food trucks, live music and local beer, yet in just two short years Night Market had become so popular it was attracting 2,000 people or more in four short hours. However, it grew to be seen as more of an attraction for people from outside the neighborhood and not for the diverse neighbors who lived nearby.
Kris Nonn, the Executive Director of the North Limestone Community Development Corporation, the non-profit behind the Market, worked with his team to refocus the operation on supporting diverse small businesses and creating equitable economic development, work which coincided with planning to move the market into a more permanent location. The new Julietta Market opened in November 2020 and provides an example of how these kinds of markets can support a local neighborhood by featuring diverse makers and helping incubate these small businesses so they can reach the next level of their growth to support local wealth generation and job creation.
Centering equity at Julietta Market
Some of the innovative practices and policies that have helped Julietta Market support a more equitable public market model include:
– A tiered rent system for market kiosks, providing discounts and small business support to vendors who are members of multiple marginalized groups, for example veterans, people of color, women, low-income, formerly incarcerated, disabled and living in the nearby neighborhood;
– Weekly small business support meetings with a mentor for vendors who qualify for rent assistance;
– Giving neighborhood residents access to a Community-Supported Agriculture organization, with tiered pricing based on people’s ability to pay;
– Hiring an MBE contractor to build out the market’s interior;
– Access to a shared kitchen is in the market’s future, which will alleviate the need for small food and beverage vendors to carry their own expensive kitchen leases.
Nonn, who is a trained architect, has worked hard to ensure the physical space of the market reflects the focus on socioeconomic mixing and the varied vendors housed there. When COVID-19 reduced fundraising, Nonn decided to let vendors bring their own style to booths, creating a simple, welcoming design for the space and hiring a local MBE contractor to build it out.
“I want to use my design skills to promote equitable redevelopment, to ensure that our building invites people into a multicultural space,” he says. “I’ve learned from my international travels that places like Egyptian bazaars and rural Amazonian markets can crackle with energy even if the physical space is not what an architect dreamed up as art.”
Advice from innovative public markets
Julietta Market is one of a number of public markets focused on the success of diverse businesses and connecting people from local neighborhoods to each other and to needed goods and services. These public space leaders have learned lessons that can be valuable to other cities and groups interested in starting or running public markets or any other public space that brings people together in celebration of food and local goods.
Start simple. While we believe good design is critical for civic assets, when starting a public market you may want to use underutilized space for a pilot and keep it simple in the beginning. For instance, North Limestone Community Development Corporation tested the neighborhood public market concept with the Night Market, hosted seasonally on a low-traffic street for a number of years, in advance of creating a permanent market through Julietta Market.
Hold equity as an intention. Julietta Market’s tiered costs for qualifying vendors from disenfranchised communities is one model that considers equity; Philadelphia’s historic Reading Terminal Market instituted a low-fee “day cart” model that allowed hyper-local businesses to sell alongside the market’s bigger, more established and better-capitalized merchant. Both models seek to elevate equity by creating on-ramps for entrepreneurs, who may otherwise not have the opportunity to start or grow their businesses.
Align with neighborhood desires. The need for Julietta Market was voiced by the 1000+ Night Market vendors, as well as through the “North Limestone Cultural Plan” conducted through the National Endowment for the Arts, Knight Foundation-funded community-led engagement in 2016 and 2017. In addition, the need for a market arose during a 2018 Equity Audit community survey done on behalf of the North Limestone Community Development Corporation, as well as anecdotal feedback and input over several years.
Food is a connector. Eating is a universal part of everyday life and something people love to share with others. Consider how you can use food in public markets and in other civic assets to connect people of different backgrounds to each other and to these places. Detroit’s Eastern Market supports a variety of programs that make fresh and healthy food affordable to all, including allowing customers to pay with SNAP benefits and supporting farmers’ markets across the region in the city’s food deserts. At Reading Terminal Market, the “Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers” dinner series invited people from different communities to the market for dinner and conversation, bridging racial, economic and geographic divides. The first two sessions paired Philadelphia communities that had historically tense relationships — Korean Americans and African Americans who lived near a West Philadelphia commercial corridor; other pairings included West African refugees and African American residents and Syrian refugees and residents of North Philadelphia.
Evolve from what’s working. Lexington’s Julietta Market evolved out of the successful Night Market, and evolved into a permanent space that is more welcoming to the surrounding neighborhood and more inclusive of diverse small business owners. Equity is a long game and there is always room for improvement. Be ready to improve upon what you are doing and take it to the next level.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
