Harbour Main landmark tapped for farmers’ market

By Patrick Newhook/January 6, 2022

The people of Harbour Main-Chapel’s Cove-Lakeview will soon have more options for buying local goods and produce thanks to the opening of a regional farmers market.

In 2021, the town council purchased the community’s historic PJ Kennedy property with plans to revitalize it. The building is a landmark, having long served as a general store on a sharp turn on the main road, just steps from the pavement.

Mayor Mike Doyle, allowed the building’s location caused some issues.

“The original historic store that’s on the corner there, really creates a blind spot for traffic there,” Doyle allowed.

The property contains two buildings. According to Doyle, after inspection, the first building was deemed unfit while the second building had a good foundation.

“We did look at the old store and had several people look at it, unfortunately it’s not salvageable,” said Mayor Doyle. “The original store, however, the long building on the other side on the property we had some folks look at that and it looks like it’s got a good solid foundation and will be able to be restored and so we are looking at turning that into a regional farmers market.”

In recent years, council has been encouraging residents who want to grow their own food. From setting up a year-round greenhouse to having a community garden and orchard, the town is aiming to become more organic.

Mayor Doyle thinks it’s a good idea for people to start doing more farming and agriculture, and the addition of a farmers’ market will allow some of them to sell their produce.

“As people start to get their vegetables and things, we wanted to have a place where they could market their vegetables,” said Doyle, “you know, their bottling, their pickled beets or items of that nature. We thought it would be a nice community gathering spot as well where folks can get together and sell their wares and create sort of a new economy.”

Doyle said the plan is to start small and build on what’s available. Council has high hopes for what it can do for the area.

“What we hope that it will do is bring people together and, once again, promote holistic living and organic growing and healthy food options and choices and a means to be educational as well,” said Doyle.

The hope is to see the market open for business within the next year or two.

“Right now, we are working to get a contractor to come in and give us some estimates on how much it’s going to cost to do the building and really to decide on the best way to go forward with the project,” said Doyle.