The opening of a new residential development next door to the farmers market on Grand Avenue is prompting questions about the future of the Saturday market.
In July 2023, the Spotlight reported that the lot adjacent to the Saturday farmers market at Grand Avenue and Margaret Street, normally used for parking during market day, would make way for a major new residential building.
As construction began, visitors and vendors had to cope with the reduced square footage. Thirty of the 115 vendors had to leave, and parking, though never easy, became more of a problem.
The building, Elemi at Grove Village, is just about to come online, with 46 apartments renting for up to $8,000 a month for a unit with three bedrooms and three baths.
For decades, the stretch of Grand Avenue between Margaret Street and Southwest 37th Avenue was a no-man’s-land of vacant lots. Previously, it had been home to a string of low-income apartment buildings, but their residents had to leave when the City of Miami granted special development rights for several blocks of the avenue.
Now, seemingly at once, it has become the Grove’s newest and busiest location for new buildings. Silver Bluff, the developer of Elemi, has begun three other large projects on Grand Avenue, one of them a class A office building. In combination with other projects either contemplated or in the works, a true Grand Avenue renaissance appears to be underway.
Inevitably, the question arises of what will happen to the farmers market – and how it can survive in a what seems to be a suddenly hot economic climate (which, in fact, was years in the making)?
Unlike the many Grove restaurants that come and go, often before anyone notices, the Saturday farmers market is a beloved Grove institution.
It was launched in 1977 when Herb Hiller, a Coconut Grove writer and world traveler, decided he wanted to create a way to continue the spirit of the June Goombay festival throughout the year.
Hiller says that Goombay, with its Bahamian dances, music, and food, was a joyful interracial mix where people came together for recreation, celebration, and fun.
“I liked very much how Blacks and Whites mingled in those huge crowds over that weekend,” says Hiller, who has since relocated with his family to a suburb of Atlanta. “I wanted some way to keep that going.”
Hiller found a vacant lot for the market on Grand Avenue where the CVS is now located. Eventually, word got out that the market had a unique intercultural vibe.
“It was all about food and drink, and we had marvelous vendors—Vietnamese, Blacks, Whites, and people from many other backgrounds,” says Hiller. “It was all very informal. I charged them all $5 a week.”
Although Hiller managed the market, “It was just fun for me,” he says. “I loved going there Saturday morning and mingling with fellow Grovites. It was the kind of place where you spend time that’s neither your home or your work—people call them third places. Parks, for example. For me, this was a third place.”
After two years, Hiller, busy in the world of Caribbean travel, looked for someone to keep the market going. He found just the right person in Stan Glaser, the owner of Glaser Organic Farms in south Miami-Dade County, which sells home-grown produce to Whole Foods and other South Florida retailers.
After nearly 50 years as manager, Glaser’s commitment to the market is rock-solid. When it was located on the site of the current CVS on Grand Avenue, Glaser learned from the property owner that they would have to relocate.
“He threw us out the Thursday before the market,” says Glaser. “The people who owned the land where we are now had offered previously to move the market there, so I got in touch with them, and we moved very quickly. We’ve never had any kind of long-term contract in the close to 50 years that we’ve been there. It’s always been month to month.”
At the beginning, the market paid no rent at all, using the property in exchange for keeping it neat and orderly. Now, Glaser pays about $5,000 per month.
Glaser says they’ve been lucky to have property owners who like the market and want to keep it going. He’s well aware that, given the increasing value of the property, a farmers market is far from the most profitable enterprise it can sustain.
The current owner has told him, Glaser says, “there are some financial reasons why he hasn’t developed that land. He said it was the worst investment he ever made in terms of making money. He’s a nice guy and he’s friendly to the market, but I can’t see the market lasting too much longer on that spot.”
Glaser says he doesn’t know how many times he’s been asked what’s going to happen with the market. “I’m constantly bombarded with that question and have been for the last 50 years. The best I can say is we’re there by the grace of God. Every time somebody tries to use that lot, something happens. There’s a recession or something, and there we are.”
District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, whose office might be able to help the market stay afloat, says he’s a big fan of the market. “It’s such a vibrant meeting place in our community,” says Pardo. “Our office is fully supportive of it continuing, and we will provide as much support as we are able to in order to see it continue and succeed.”
Orlando Benitez, the current property owner, also owns several other Grand Avenue vacant lots. When asked, no property owner in the area could say what Benitez is planning for the farmers market site or any other.
When contacted by the Spotlight, Benitez said, “I don’t talk to reporters.”
