By Keisha Moreland
The Harbor City Night Market will hold its last night at the Pier 9 lot on Water Street on Saturday, Oct. 31, and reopen the following Friday, Nov. 6, at the old rail yard off Mill Road, organizers announced Wednesday. The new site has room for nearly twice as many stalls and will let the market stay open through the winter for the first time.
The market has run on Friday and Saturday nights at Pier 9 from April through October since 2019. It outgrew the lot years ago, said Ana Beltrán, director of the Harbor City Night Market Association, the nonprofit that runs it. The association has a waiting list of 140 vendors.
“We’ve been turning people away every week for three years,” Beltrán said. “At the rail yard we can finally say yes to some of them, and we don’t have to shut down when it gets cold.”
The City Council approved a 10-year lease of the rail yard to the association in September, at $1 a year. The city has spent $3.1 million from its capital budget to pave the yard, add lighting, restrooms and electrical hookups, and put a new roof on the brick roundhouse, which has stood empty since the yard closed in 1994.
What changes
- Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 5 to 11 p.m., an hour later than at Pier 9. Amplified music ends at 10 p.m.
- Season: year-round. Forty stalls will be inside the roundhouse, so the market will no longer close from November to March.
- Stalls: 110, up from 64. The 46 new spaces will be filled by lottery from the waiting list. Applications are open through Oct. 23.
- Fees: $50 a night per stall, up from $40. First-year vendors pay $25 a night for their first three months.
- Parking: 220 spaces in a lot on the yard’s east side, at $5 a car, and 80 bike parking spaces by the main gate.
- Without a car: a free shuttle will run between the Water Street Ferry Terminal and the rail yard every 15 minutes from 4:45 to 11:30 p.m. on market nights. Bus 12 stops at Mill Road and Tannery Lane. The walk takes about 20 minutes from the ferry terminal and 12 from Dockside Stadium.
The Pier 9 lot will return to the Port of Harbor City, which plans to use it for truck staging.
Vendors and neighbors
Tomasz Wierzbicki, who has sold pierogi at Pier 9 since 2021, said the roof was the biggest change for him. “Every November I’ve had to find other work for five months,” he said. “Now I don’t.”
He was less sure that customers who wander in from Water Street would follow the market across downtown. “Some will. Some won’t,” he said. “We’ll know by December.”
Residents of Linden Row, the apartment complex across Mill Road from the yard, raised concerns about noise and parking at two public meetings this summer. Under an agreement with the city, the association will end amplified music at 10 p.m., hire two traffic attendants for market nights and close the yard’s Mill Road gate to cars after 9 p.m.
Delia Fonseca, who has lived at Linden Row for 11 years, said she was cautiously glad about the move. “I like the market. I just want to be able to park on my own street on a Saturday,” she said. “They made promises. I’ll be keeping a list.”
The last night and the first
The association will mark its final night at Pier 9 on Oct. 31 with a costume parade through the lot at 7 p.m. Opening night at the rail yard on Nov. 6 will include a free concert in the roundhouse from 6 to 9 p.m.
Beltrán said the association would post a map of the new site, with each vendor’s stall number, on its website by Nov. 1.