Growing Mulberry Market to move to Tattnall Square Park

The Mulberry Market is leaving its sliver of green space between the lanes of Mulberry Street and moving to Tattnall Square Park next month.

“We have just outgrown that space,” Market manager Lacey Templeton said. “We have many vendors (and) we have a waiting list for many more. We’re just out of room.”

Templeton said Mulberry Street lacks the convenient parking and amenities available at Tattnall park.

“There’s no restrooms, no running water (and) electricity is spotty,” Templeton said of the Mulberry Street location. “We have several vendors that need to plug in their refrigerated trucks for their dairy and their meat. The utilities that we’re working with down there are old, and the city has been kind enough to furnish those for us, but we’re just overloading them because we have way more vendors than we started off with.”

Joseph Egloff, cattleman and chief executive officer for Rocking Chair Ranch Cattle, has been selling his grass-fed beef at the market for nearly three years, but said his sales have dropped over the past year.

“I think people have just gotten tired of fighting the traffic and the parking (on Mulberry Street),” Egloff said. “For the customers that I speak to, that seems to be their biggest drawback. ... I’m excited about trying something different that might be a little more convenient for everybody.”

Lyle Lansdell sells organic vegetables and grass-fed lamb raised on her farm in Sandersville. She said lots of vendors are excited about the move, but she still has concerns.

“I am afraid we will lose people who like to walk over (to the market) after work,” Lansdell said.

When the market opened in April 2011, there were 10 or 11 vendors, Templeton said. Today there are more than 30.

Josh Rogers, chief executive officer of NewTown Macon, said he still considers Tattnall Square Park to be downtown.

“I think it will be a great move,” Rogers said. “Downtown acts as a natural incubator because there are 25,000 people working down here every day, and there’s space available and lots of public parks. So I think that’s a good thing if they’ve got to grow up and grow out. They’re certainly still close enough for all of us to get to easily.”

Rogers said downtown Macon is the best testing ground for ideas in Middle Georgia because there are so many people already there every day.

Mulberry Market started as an initiative of three entities: Main Street Macon, Macon Roots and Community Health Works, a nonprofit that aims to improve the health of Middle Georgians and help local health care providers deliver services efficiently.

“One of (Community Health Works’) missions is to provide food access to people of low income who typically don’t have reliable transportation,” Templeton said. “I think moving to Tattnall Square Park is going to put us ... closer to people that need that food access than we are now, because we’ll be closer to a lot of residential properties than we are downtown.”

Amy Bean, who operates The Little Farm in Gray, said the closest bus stop to the market on Mulberry Street is at Terminal Station. Tattnall Square Park has a bus stop on Adams Street, which Bean said will make the market more accessible to bus riders.

Templeton said she hopes the market’s new location will attract shoppers from Alexander II Magnet School and Mercer University. The park will be a safer venue, Templeton said, because people won’t have to cross a busy street.

“We’ll also have wheelchair access,” Templeton said, adding that the market on Mulberry Street is not handicap accessible. “There are lots of things that are going to make it easier for all shoppers to come to the market.”

Even though the market will no longer be on Mulberry Street, Templeton said it will keep “Mulberry” in its name. The new name of the market will be Mulberry Market at Tattnall Square Park. It will open Oct. 15.

This story was originally published September 10, 2014 at 9:28 PM with the headline "Growing Mulberry Market to move to Tattnall Square Park."