Reader question: Can the public (or the city) 'intervene' to salvage Union Street Market?

Since the City of Fort Wayne and Allen County Capital Improvement Board (CIB) gave Electric Works $65M in direct public funding, it has been billed to residents as a “public-private" project.

But residents and local leaders might not be on the same page about just how much of the region's largest project is a public entity.

One continual point of interest at Electric Works is its food hall, Union Street Market, about which residents and market tenants alike have expressed concerns regarding leadership and turnover since it opened in November 2022.

Recently, one of our readers emailed Mayor Sharon Tucker’s office, asking the city to “intervene” to salvage Union Street Market and the “financial stake of taxpayers in the project.”

They wrote:

“Dear Mayor Tucker, I was so excited for the Union Street Market at Electric Works and am equally disappointed in how it appears to be failing. So many vendors have come and left, so many booths remain vacant. It has such promise as a retreat and haven for residents, visitors, and employees, but it will not be that without a stable cadre of vendors. Unfortunately, the more vendors that leave and vacancies there are, the less likely folks are interested in going there to look for something to eat or buy, and the worse the problem becomes. I think the City of Fort Wayne desperately needs to intervene, given the importance of Electric Works in the community, its existence as an example of the City's efforts to invest in the community, and the financial stake of taxpayers in the project. I have faith in your leadership and hope to see the Union Street Market flourishing in the near future.”

On Feb. 3, Public Information Officer for the City of Fort Wayne John Perlich responded:

“We’re also saddened that the Union Street Market has had challenges stabilizing its vendors. Electric Works is a private business. They’ll be responsible for assessing its business model as it relates to the Union Street Market. Though the Capital Improvement Board and the City of Fort Wayne granted Electric Works over $50 million without a requirement for any kind of payback, the City is not in a position to financially support Electric Works or any other privately owned business.”

So is Electric Works a private entity or a public-private project?

And what stake do residents (and the city) have in Union Street Market, specifically?

It's complicated, but here’s what we know so far:

• As covered in our newsletter this week, Union Street Market played a significant role in the city’s 2020 Economic Development Agreement contract with Electric Works. This contract allowed the project to receive $65M in direct public funding, but it's not posted on the city’s website (even though it is a public record). While the city and Allen County CIB might not expect “any kind of payback” for this investment, the city’s 2020 contract with developers does list an entire section of mandates for Union Street Market (5.10), including that it must remain open for 10 years and offer “mission-driven” benefits to the community, like food access and cultural engagement.
• The contract also establishes an independent nonprofit Public Market Trust board to “steward the public good” at Union Street Market. It mandates that six of the 13 board members are appointed by the CIB, and assigns the Trust several responsibilities involving holding the market accountable, including reporting on its progress annually. This ongoing role of the Trust as a shared, independent entity makes Electric Works unique among the city’s public-private projects.

Overall: while the public stake in Electric Works, as a whole, remains unclear (and perhaps debatable), the Trust itself is a separate nonprofit (aka not private business), directly involving the public and intended to uphold what appears to be a significant public interest in Union Street Market.

We’ll explore the public stake in Electric Works further in coming weeks.

In the meantime…

What can residents do who are concerned about Union Street Market? 

In our research: we discovered that a formalized chain of command to address citizen concerns about Union Street Market has not yet been established. But city officials suggest directing concerns to the Public Market Trust (trust@unionstreetmarket.org), which would ideally report them to the CIB and then engage the city, as necessary.

Ironically: the Public Market Trust has not been very public about its activities since its creation in 2022. But its incoming President Riley Johnson says he believes the Trust can improve how it works with citizens to address and relay their concerns about Union Street Market going forward. “We can do a better job of creating more accessible ways for information to flow from residents to us and local leadership," he says. "That might put some positive pressure on the chain of command to keep local interests at the forefront.”

Learn more about the Public Market Trust in this week's email rundown.