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Ten years ago, a nearly bankrupt City of Detroit spun off its Eastern Market into a nonprofit corporation as a last-ditch effort to turn around the declining gem.
It worked, as John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press sees it:
Today, tens of thousands of visitors throng the market on Saturday public market days. Upgraded market sheds host everything from boxing matches to weddings and fashion shows. And the market has emerged as the centerpiece of the burgeoning local food movement with dozens of start-up entrepreneurs offering specialty food items from jams to jerky.
But success brings its own dangers. The rapid revitalization of the greater downtown will soon see new development nibble at the market's borders in ways that have nothing to do with food. And more and more visitors are tourists who come more to snap photos than to buy blueberries and kale.
Dan Carmody, chief executive of Eastern Market Corp. since 2007, tells the Freep protecting the character of the market district remains his biggest challenge.
"We survived the last 50 years with our authentic character intact as a working food district and as a place that welcomes all," Carmody said over lunch last week. "And in many ways maybe the tough times Detroit’s been through made that easier" because it held development pressures at bay.
