After years of planning, new digs for Lee’s Summit Farmers Market now on the horizon

A new, permanent home for the Downtown Lee’s Summit Farmers Market is one step closer. Although it’s been years in the making, it wasn’t until a July 21 meeting that the city council gave City Manager Steve Arbo approval to start looking for a developer.

Mayor Bill Baird shared a plan for developing the site at Southeast Green Street and Southeast Third Street, across the street from Lee’s Summit City Hall. The plan calls for a mixed-use complex on the site, featuring the enclosed farmers market space, as well as an event and performing arts space.

Part of the idea is to sell parts of the land to a private developer, who would build a boutique hotel, apartments, restaurants and other commercial venues.

The farmers market is a key driving force behind the project. The city has been thinking about a new home for it since 2004, but there were some difficulties obtaining the land.

“It’s one thing to talk about this for all these years and then get everybody’s hopes up, and then it doesn’t happen,” Baird said. “So this time around, we made sure we had the land under contract. We weren’t about to show any renderings until we closed on it.”

Right now, the market sits a few blocks away from this new site.

“Our current farmers market is just a parking lot. We don’t have any kind of structure, and it’s extremely popular,” Baird said. “It’s a great environment, but it’s very difficult parking-wise, and the location is small. We have far greater demand than what we are able to provide to the vendors.”

Baird said that in the new location, customers would be able to use the city hall parking garage. There would also be bathrooms available, which the current market does not have.

The structure would also allow the market to go on when the weather is not so great. Also in the plan are courtyards with space for outdoor performance seating.

A conservatory would provide a smaller indoor performing arts space that Baird hopes could double as a place to hold conferences in conjunction with the planned hotel.

The funding for the project is mostly coming from the sale of other city properties. A small amount is also coming from a general obligation bond passed in 2013.

Purchasing the various parcels of land for the site came to about $3 million. Baird said about $9 million will go for infrastructure. He wants to combine that with developer investments.

“If we’re going to develop this whole entire half of a city block, some of these costs we’ll be able to push off to the private side,” Baird said. “It’s a way to share the expenses and benefit our city.”

Because it’s still in the planning stages, it could be three years before residents might actually see this new market open.

“We’re excited for the future of downtown and the potential for the farmers market to be the center of that, driving that development,” said Donnie Rodgers Jr., executive director of Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street.

“It’s a great opportunity to take a piece of property that’s underutilized in downtown Lee’s Summit and turn it into something we can all be proud of.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.