Front Street Businesses Pitch Own Farmers Market

In anticipation of a village board vote next week on renewing the French Market contract, a group of Front Street merchants on Monday presented their own plan for a downtown market.

Group spokesman Tony Dina of said the group believes they can prepare a farmers market to run along Front Street from Wolf Road to Division Street within four to six weeks.

"It may not be exactly what we would like it to be, but it would be something and something is better than nothing," Dina said.

The presentation, which was prepared Sunday when the business owners and village board Trustee Don Labriola met at , was made to a board considering the fate of the 10-year-old French Market.

A five-year extension of the contract was up for approval last week, but after , the measure was tabled for two weeks for a chance at greater resident input. They will vote on the market next Monday.

One major sticking point at last week's meeting was a one-year non-compete clause. This meant that if Mokena opted to go with another market after the five-year contract with French Market manager Bensidoun, Inc., they couldn't hold it at the Metra lot for another year.

The village had negotiated that down from Bensidoun's standard three-year non-compete clause. After last week's meeting, the village again negotiated the non-compete down, turning the non-compete year into another year of French Market.

"This makes it a six-year agreement with no non-compete clause," Assistant Village Administrator Kirk Zoellner said.

The 10-year contract expiring this spring has a three-year non-compete, meaning no market can be held at the Metra lot until 2015.

That's fine with the group of merchants who spoke at the meeting.

"It should happen on (Front) street," Charlene Bergman of Dave's Auto Service said. "It should be Mokena's market."

Group member Bill Hayes of Front Street-based Insurance House, Inc., said the group can obtain $1 million of liability insurance with the village as co-insurant. That should cover 20 vendors, he said.

At last week's meeting, Zoellner said the market started with 28 vendors a week, dropping to an average of 20 over the last six years.

Vendor Mary Gutierrez has sold bread at the French Market since 2007 and managed it since 2010. She said the shrinking market size is a sign of the economy, not of mismanagement by Bensidoun.

"Bensidoun has provided what they said they would provide for the money we give them," she said. "It's not broken. It just needs improvement."

She said improvements negotiated into the contract extension, including lower rates for vendors and more marketing, should help the market.

See what vendors would pay if the contract extension passes.

One issue working against the downtown businesspeople is time.

If the board next week votes down the French Market, they would start looking at other options at that point. Approving a Front Street market would take time, as would the merchants organizing vendors.

The clock is ticking, as farmers and other vendors plan out the markets they attend in advance. Bensidoun sent out its applications for the whole summer to vendors last week.

"We're waiting for (the board) to get off of dead center here," said Barbara Bergman of Mokena U-Haul on Front Street.

Barbara Bergman said she would be organizing the vendors for the group and had three verbally committed already.

"We're going to try to keep the French Market people," Barbara Bergman said. "We would give them dibs."

French Market vendor Ruth Zeldenrust of Chicago Heights-based Zeldenrust Farm Market said she would be interested in coming to a Front Street market, if the group can pull it off with the time and other constraints.

"Every town and every little place is starting a market," Zeldenrust said. "But I go with Bensidoun because of the track record. I know I will be successful there."