Dryden Council in talks to move farmer’s market back downtown
Dryden City Council is leaning towards moving the Cloverbelt County Farmer’s Market from the AgCentre back to the parking lot of Dryden Memorial Arena in the downtown core.
Council will discuss with city staff to push this proposal further.
“This would allow the market to be accessible to people who can’t drive and people in long-term care facilities,” said Benjamin Feagin Jr., CEO of grocery store AgriTech North and presenter of the proposal. “It will also provide the market access to people being able to conveniently stop on their way out of work.”
“The traffic is probably tenfold, if not more, better in the history of the farmer’s market at [the arena parking lot] than at the AgCentre.”
Feagin said the AgCentre has been very accommodating, but Dryden needs to incentivize vendors to return after poor performances in recent years.
“Food is not a forgiving market,” Feagin said. “It’s a very low margin, so it takes a lot to keep it alive.”
The proposal was received positively at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“I think there’s a huge benefit to having the event downtown,” said City CAO Roger Nesbitt. “It adds tremendous value driving foot traffic into the downtown core and providing more events through the summer months.”
“I’m fully supportive of our farmer’s market coming back into town,” Councillor Ritch Noel said. “I used to go to it all the time, but when it’s out of sight, out of mind out there [at the AgCentre], I tend to forget about it.”
Feagin is also proposing the city funds semi-permanent or permanent infrastructure in the arena parking lot for the farmer’s market and other events.
“A lot of our farmers are aging and they can’t set up on their own and they can’t be trucking tables and chairs every time, so they need storage space,” Feagin said. “We could provide a trailer for tables and chairs at the parking lot temporarily while we sort out other details.”
He says he’s connected with a woman‑led engineering group in Thunder Bay that’s prepared to assess the lot and suggest infrastructure options with minimal impact on parking.
