The Portland Saturday Market is an outdoor arts and crafts market in Portland, Oregon.[1] It is the largest continuously operated outdoor market in the United States.[1][2] It is held every Saturday and Sunday from February 28 to December 24, at the junction of SW Ankeny and the Naito Parkway located under the west end of the Burnside Bridge stretching as far as Ankeny Park.[1][2] The market's hours of operations are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m on Sundays, and admission is free.[2] The market is accessible by foot, bicycle, and TriMet's MAX Light Rail line which stops within the market at the Skidmore Fountain stop beside Skidmore Fountain.[3] In addition, the market has a Festival of the Last Minute, which runs daily until Christmas Eve.[4] The market has over 400 members and generates an estimated $8 million in gross sales annually. It has become a central economic engine for the historic Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, and attracts an estimated 750,000 visitors to this area each year.[5]
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The market was founded in 1974 by craftspeople Sheri Teasdale and Andrea Scharf, who modeled it after the Saturday Market in Eugene, Oregon.[5] It was founded as a mutual benefit corporation, under which all members would share in the cost and governance of the market, yet keep all profits they receive from selling their items. All items sold at the Saturday Market are required to be handmade by the person selling it, and a committee of members judge each new item against a minimum standard of quality.[5]
The group did not have a location for the market, until Bill Naito offered them a parking lot known as the "Butterfly lot". A large butterfly mural hangs over the market today commemorating the past.[5] For the first year that the market operated, there was no specific site plan. A clear site plan was eventually created, marking out 8 x 8 foot booth spaces, defining aisles and a pattern for customer traffic.[5] The market moved to its current site under the Burnside Bridge in 1976, and began operating on Sundays the following year.[5]
In April, 2005, the Portland Development Commission and Portland Saturday Market began a study of potential sites that serve as a permanent location for the Saturday Market.[6] Currently, it exists on a patchwork of short-term leases with private property owners, providing little or no long-term certainty. The current situation deters capital investment due to a lack in of mid-week activities on the site, and reinforces adverse social conditions, creating an unsafe area within the neighborhood along with the additional burden of weekly cleaning of the site before Market use. The long-range major goals for the Market include: a permanent location, improved infrastructure, and more protection from the weather, needing to met in a cost efficient manner.[6]
In October 2005, the city launched its own study called the Ankeny/Burnside Development Framework Project, to assess the opportunities for the area and how best to direct public funding increase private investment. The results of the study will be used to formulate recommendations for the area as a whole.[6] Recognizing the diversity of the neighborhood, including the residents, businesses, service providers, retail, and cultural amenities, district leaders seek to energize the area seven days a week, instead of just the weekend, by creating a "market district".[6]
A $10–13 million expansion into Tom McCall Waterfront Park, which includes a pavilion, will be in use in addition to their already established locations.[7][8] The intention is that Waterfront Park will lease the pavilion to the market on the weekends during the market season, while also leasing the area for other projects during the week.[8] The older locations will be closed when the pavilion opens to make room for redevelopment.[8] The project is being overseen by the development commission, who had recently concluded a three year study on possible permanent locations.[7] Also under the project's umbrella is an accommodation for the Mercy Corps, and a refurbishment of the White Stag building.[7]