SALYERSVILLE – The Magoffin County Farmers’ Market is getting ready to reopen with a new shelter this year.
While the farmers’ market has been established for six years, with the intention of building a facility for the market. The planning stage for a permanent facility started in 2017, with $225,000 in grant funds that Magoffin County Extension Office was able to obtain for the structure.
After making their way through some red tape, construction is now well underway at their West Maple Street location, near downtown Salyersville, with the goal of opening at the new facility later this summer.
“Once we got all that squared away, we had a few other delays in the process, but here we are, finally everything is under construction and we’re hoping the facility will be ready by July 2, which is our opening day for the market,” Courtney Jenkins said.
The structure will be 40 feet by 72 feet, with the back half of the enclosure to be a restroom/storage area and a small kitchen the extension office will be able to use when they are at that location doing recipe demonstrations, etc. Jenkins explained the 40×60 portion of the structure will be open-air and will be used for the vendors to set up at the farmers’ market on Tuesdays and Fridays during the market season.
The farmers’ market was very successful in the first few years at the lower end of town, but was restricted by having to set up a temporary shelter, then last year had to move everything to the parking lot at the extension office, even more limited by COVID-19, but they are looking forward to being back at the West Maple location with a new facility.
“We’ve already had several potential vendors calling, wanting to know when the space is going to be available and if we’re going to be able to accommodate them, so we’re doing our best to try to work through everything and make sure we’re going to be able to get more vendors in here and get more customers in here,” Jenkins said. “All of our vendors – we have several vendors who have been with us since we started in 2015 and they are thrilled to get to come down here and set up and not have to worry about setting up tents and tables and deal with the weather and all of the things that were out of our control when we first started the market.”
