Madison Public Market Strides Toward Launch

Expected to launch in 2021, the new Madison Public Market project recently shared exciting developments and has seen encouraging community engagement. The indoor market will be located at the Fleet Services Building on the corner of East Johnson and First streets, within walking distance of the restaurants and shops in the Willy Street and Atwood neighborhoods.

“It’s just a perfect building for it,” says Amanda White, community outreach representative for the market. “The building has floor to ceiling windows and a unique retro feel. It once had to fit fire and garbage trucks for repairs, so it has two-story open spaces without columns. It’s very open and sunny. With the industrial floors and huge garage doors, we’ll be able to bring in food trucks and host winter events. There’s just so much flexibility for permanent and short-term vending options.”

White says, “The market has been a labor of love for more than a decade.” Organizers wanted to do this right, so they waited for the ideal building to come available and have taken time for community engagement, fundraising, and thoughtful evolution of the floor plans and overall goals. To support the market’s goal to create a multicultural experience that reflects the city’s robust and growing cultural diversity, the city and local nonprofits created a Market Ready Program to help diverse entrepreneurs prepare their businesses for the market. Eighty vendors applied and 30 were selected. Sixty-three percent are women, 82 percent are people of color, and 33 percent are first-generation immigrants.

“Most communities struggle to find vendors for their public markets, but we have had the opposite problem,” says White. Nearly 200 vendors have already applied for the 30 to 40 market spaces, which will range from smaller booths for food and craft artisans up to larger spaces with kitchens. There will also be a commercial kitchen, demo kitchen, classroom, and a special Wisconsin Dairy Experience hosted by the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. With a mix of startups and established favorites all in one place, White says, “It’s really important that there’s a positive camaraderie among the vendors because they’re all working very closely together. It’s important that they feel like a team rather than competitors. Everybody has to succeed for the market to succeed.”