Downtown businesses push City Council to #KeepStateOpen during Rockford City Market

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Downtown businesses and their supporters started a social media push Thursday evening with the hashtag #KeepStateOpen as part of a continued effort to convince City Council members to reduce the scope of Rockford City Market.

The coordinated social media campaign began at 5 p.m. Thursday, with multiple people and businesses posting an image that read “Keep State Street Open: Support Local Business.”

The goal is to convince City Council members to reduce the footprint of Rockford City Market to the space it took up before the pandemic.

On Monday, a City Council committee looked at a proposal that would have closed off State Street between Wyman and First streets while also closing Madison Street between Walnut Street and Layfette Avenue. However, Alderman Mark Bonne pitched a compromise that was approved 4-1 that would open Madison and only close State between Wyman and Madison streets.

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That compromise, however, still cuts off the west side, said Paul Sletten, who owns Abreo restaurant and has been one of the leading voices of the push to reduce City Market’s footprint.

“It was great to see aldermen advocating for the downtown businesses and trying to find this olive branch and this place to meet in the middle,” Sletten said Wednesday in a Facebook Live video. “The problem is that meeting in the middle doesn’t work as well for the west-side businesses and again it doesn’t address State Street.”

Sletten has said that businesses can’t afford to deal with any other disruptions after two challenging years of coronavirus pandemic restrictions. He thinks the expanded City Market footprint, put in place to respond to challenges with social distancing and regular protests outside City Market in 2020, is no longer needed.

“Why do we have to have such a knee-jerk reaction to one bad year?” Sletten said in the video. “This market ran great for nine years and then had a bad year. I think this is an overreaction to issues they had on 2020, and there’s plenty of other options that they can explore.”

City staff and City Market officials have said the expanded area is safer and more conducive to helping grow the number of weekly visitors.

City Council meets at 5:35 p.m. Monday to consider the proposal.

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Mayor Tom McNamara said that no matter what footprint the council decides on, the goal remains to draw more visitors to City Market while providing a safe environment.

“We want to make sure that the vendors do well as well as the brick-and-mortar businesses,” he told the Rock River Current on Thursday. “Regardless of the footprint that aldermen ultimately approve, those goals will be the same and we’ll continue to work with the City Market as well as downtown businesses.”

Those joining the social media push included some of the 64 businesses who signed a petition to reduce the market’s footprint. There were also local musicians, artists and politicians.

“Closing State Street limits access to City Market for west-siders,” Angela Fellars, the District 19 Winnebago County Board representative, wrote on Facebook. “It also makes getting to local businesses a nightmare. Over 60 local businesses are asking the city to keep State Street open on Friday nights.”

City Market officials have pointed to surveys that show visitors largely support the larger footprint, and they say most businesses reported better sales thanks to the market.

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The survey showed that in 2021 60% of downtown business said their Friday business was equal to or better than their Friday sales in 2019. An additional 65% said they got spillover business from the market. Also, 70% of respondents viewed the additional street closures positively while 20% said they had no opinion.

City Market drew approximately 90,000 visits last year after the pandemic-stricken 2020 had attendance of just 24,000. The record high numbers were more than 111,000 in 2019.

City Market is scheduled to kick of its season May 20. It runs from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Fridays until Sept. 30, with hours shifting to 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. after Labor Day.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.