Fremont gym trying to stop Sunday Market
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The Sound Mind & Body gym has even threatened to sue the city if it grants the market a permanent permit to operate for the first time in front of the gym on a public street — North 34th Street between Phinney and Evanston avenues north.
At a public meeting yesterday, the city's Special Events Committee took a step in that direction, granting the Fremont Sunday Market a four-week conditional-use permit allowing its eclectic collection of 100-plus vendors to sell their wares — everything from kilts to kitchen magnets — on the street beginning April 28.
"They just ramrodded it through the committee," said Richard Harrington, one of the gym's three owners. He said he doesn't want the market, which draws a good 2,000 to 3,000 people every Sunday, operating in the street because it will wipe out 72 free parking spaces — many used by his patrons.
A community that thrives on spontaneity, Fremont is home to such works of art as a bronze sculpture of Communist icon Vladimir Lenin and a large rocket that blasts smoke on demand. It's a neighborhood that has created a solstice parade crashed by nude bicyclists and a "Pagan Hootenanny" on Halloween called Trolloween.
But about four years ago, the freewheeling funkiness began to give way to a business park, new offices, spa stores and rising rents. Soon thereafter, bumper stickers began to pop up around town: "Fremont Sucks Thanks to Suzie," a reference to Suzie Burke, the landowner who leased the land for the business park, now home to Adobe Systems.
The Sunday market, a rich part of the old Fremont's local fabric and now in its 12th year, is feeling the squeeze. It spent the winter in the underground parking garage of the Burke Building, across the street from the gym. For years, it operated in the summer months in a parking lot behind the Red Door Alehouse just up the street. But that location's out because a new development is being built there.
Last summer, the market was run at a nearby Ship Canal marina but a stricter process for granting a permit so close to a shoreline has eliminated that site, too. (Plus, some boat owners weren't too keen on having a circus in their backyard).
Jon Hegeman, the market organizer, said the North 34th Street site is the only remaining suitable location for the market, and if it can't operate there, the market's dead in Fremont.
But gym owners wonder what gives market operators the right to close down a public street to hold a for-profit event. They say it's akin to Nordstrom closing the street outside its store and selling clothes every Sunday.
"As I understand it, a public street can't be closed for private business. I don't know how it's gotten this far," Harrington said.
For the folks in Fremont, those are fightin' words.
"Why would anyone want to stifle this cultural activity? It's outrageous. Corporations have to give way to culture, or we are completely lost," said Peter Toms, owner of Condor Electronics in Fremont.
Toms said a protest will be held in front of the gym tonight.
If the gym has allies, they are keeping silent. A community meeting March 27 on the matter was described as a love fest for the market.
Last week, the gym owners tried to force the market out of its parking garage, saying it didn't have the right permit — a move described by Burke, owner of the land under the building, as "nasty" and "very un-Fremont." The gym lost that battle.
Sound Mind & Body points out that it's no newcomer to Fremont, having moved from a small, quaint building in the neighborhood to a 38,000-square-foot facility in 1997.
"We've been here since 1985 supporting the Fun Run. We are as much a part of Fremont as anyone else," said Harrington.
Seattle Times staff reporter Bobbi Nodell can be reached at 206-464-2342.