Niagara Falls City Market is more than a place to buy produce — it’s become a point of tradition, access and the city’s hopes for revival. Now, city leaders are betting that a continued partnership with a Buffalo-based food organization will help bring that vision closer to reality.
Falls City Council members voted unanimously to extend an agreement with Field & Fork Network Inc. to continue to provide “consulting services to improve the management” of the farmer’s market at the Niagara Falls City Market on Pine Avenue.
The new contract extends an expiring agreement between the city and Field & Fork Network Inc. It runs from April 11 through April 10, 2027.
The city has contracted with Field & Fork since 2022, and in a memo in support of the new contract, Falls Mayor Robert Restaino wrote that the organization “performed its contractual responsibilities to the city admirably over the past four years.” The mayor called the farmer’s market “an important source of food access for our citizens and the community at large.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Field & Fork will continue to provide a wide variety of management services that include vendor recruitment for the farmer’s market, promotion and marketing, enforcement of market rules and regulations and oversight of farmer’s market operations. Field & Fork will also be responsible for the on-site tracking of purchases made at the farm stands with “Double Up Food Bucks” under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other SNAP incentive programs.
Restaino told the council members that the cost of Field & Fork’s services will be higher in the new contract because of the expiration of a grant that has “heavily subsidized” its previous work. The new agreement calls for the organization to be paid $161,000.
That funding will come from Tribal Revenue accounts restricted for economic development. The payment will also be credited toward the city’s $3 million investment commitment to Empire State Development (ESD) for its multi-year project to reconfigure and revitalize the City Market.
ESD has pledged an investment of approximately $20 million to restore the City Market, which traces its history and traditions back to the late 1880s.
City officials have taken steps in recent years to build back interest in the market, which was once a prime destination for visitors and residents along the Pine Avenue business district. In 2021, the city bought out the interests of Lewiston businessman Al Muto, who oversaw operations at the market under an agreement struck with the city in 1999.
The city bought Muto out of a lease which ran through July 2032 and had an option for an additional 44 years until 2076. City officials agreed to spend $2 million in American Rescue Plan funds to terminate Muto Development’s lease and reacquire control of the market and six adjacent properties.