After the City of Madison earmarked budget dollars to establish a public market, city officials have started looking for a location to house the year-round, indoor, local food venue.

Despite a more limited 2014 Capital Budget, Mayor Paul Soglin pledged $3.5 million to the public market in 2014, and $11.5 million total between 2014 and 2017, to support the city selection committee working to pick a consultant for the project, Soglin’s spokesperson Katie Crawley said.

According to Crawley, the city is still reviewing applications for consultants on the project and has been conducting studies on the feasibility of a public market since 2004. Crawley said the mayor is going to continue to push the project forward.

“Its an issue that’s important to the mayor and a lot of people,” Crawley said, “The project is moving forward.”

However, several key details, including a location for the market, still need to be worked out before the public market can be constructed, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said. The mayor has said the ideal space for the public market would be a neighborhood outside the downtown area, Verveer said.

However, Verveer said he still has no guess as to where that location would be, and that it would be determined when the city and the consultant is able to move ahead with the project.

Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, District 5, said a neighborhood location would serve the public well and suggested an area around North Park Street.

Bidar-Sielaff, who is also a member of the Madison Food Policy Council, said she hopes the public market will be a place used every day by city residents. She said the market has the potential to be as popular as the city’s weekly farmer’s market held at the Capitol.

Bidar-Sielaff added the market is an opportunity to connect local growers with Madison markets. She said city staff have discussed encouraging local and organic food vendors to sell instead of other vendors.

“There have been a lot of conversations around making sure that the market is a place where we have local production at the table, producers around the state and the county,” she said.

Public markets have been successful in other cities across the country, Bidar-Sielaff said, adding  it was a “great idea for us to continue for [the city] to continue exploring.”

Verveer said the proposal reflects the mayor’s focus on food policy as a top priority. Soglin was recently elected co-chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Food Policy Council, which is one indication of his interest in the city’s food policy, Verveer said. 

“The whole public market ideas goes towards the mayor’s interest in food policy,” Verveer said.

Verveer said the project will most likely take a few years to complete, although it continues to receive funding in the budget. The city still has to determine where funding for the construction and operating costs of the market will come from, he said.

The City Council will take a final vote to adopt the capital budget on Nov. 5.