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By: Jessyka Heredia
Photos from City of El Cajon meeting and presentation
August 14, 2023 (El Cajon) – 
The El Cajon City Council on Tuesday was given a presentation by the city’s marketing and engagement manager, Chris Berg, about a new farmers market idea that includes a beer garden, farmers, artisan foods and goods plus three concert stages and more. The proposal is much larger in scope than other farmers markets around the county.
The City Manager, Graham Mitchell, also introduced three different proposals to the Council on possible projects to use their remaining ARPA funds on.
Downtown Market Nights
Downtown Market Nights is a concept for the downtown area where several streets would be shut down to traffic weekly to have a fun-for-all farmers market. The plan would be to separate the food from the artisans and have “local bands that already bring a following like Betamax” said, Berg. “The Market Nights concept would be a combination of a farmers market as well as nightlife and community development. It’s a fun way to bring a lot of activity to downtown and elevate our downtown,” said Berg.
Berg, showed examples of other cities like San Luis Obispo which have a similar marketplace weekly that closes off five streets in their downtown. This event “draws 6,000 visitors in their peak months” in “a smaller town than we are,” Berg said, adding that this market also attracts people from neighboring communities, not just San Luis Obispo.
Berg also mentioned the “626 Night Market, which is an Asian theme market based in Aracadia named for the community’s area code in northeast Los Angeles. Berg said, “The exciting part of that market is it’s been operating since 2012 and they charge for tickets to get into it, not something we are proposing here, but it also has a traveling road show that goes up to San Fransisco Bay area, then down to Orange County. They do a show a year in San Diego as well.”
He also discussed the Oceanside Sunset Market, which began in 2007. Berg said he “lived in Oceanside in 2006 and it wasn’t the best area then and their city really did a lot of work to redevelop, bring in better business and better events to really elevate the community.”
As for the proposed El Cajon event, Berg said after looking at the schedule of farmers markets in the area, Thursday evening would be the best evening every week as the markets listed on his presentation slides showed local farmers markets only in Linda Vista, North Park and Oceanside, which are far enough to not compete with an El Cajon farmers market. Thursday also would not conflict with other events in ELCajon, such as the car shows on Wednesdays and concerts in the park on Fridays for much of the year.
The proposal is for this event to be marketed as East County Market Nights to attract 275,000 community members including from the neighboring cities. It would go from 5 p.m. till 9 p.m. from April 1 – October 31. The three streets that would be closed off to traffic would have different themes in types of vendors that sell and three different stages. Berg made clear, “We are not going after the old farmers market, but it is that whole nightlife event, a lot of liveness and lots of energy.”
The East County Night Market “would have artisan foods, food trucks and street vendors,” said Berg. Main Street would be the area for the traditional farmers market items such as produce, cut flowers, herbs, barbeques,and East County restaurants that can do pop ups. There would also be ready to eat foods. Solsfeld Way would be more of a high-end grocery store area with meats, cheeses, breads.,and higher end consumables, said Berg. Rhea Avenue would be non-food crafts by local artisans wanting to sell their goods. The three music stages would be located at Centennial Park, Prescott Promenade as well as live music happening at The Downtown Café that the city would not be responsible for.
The City Council showed excitement about the proposed idea. Councilmember Michelle Metschel said, “I like this idea. I’m not sure about the rest of Council, but I think this is wonderful and I think it’s something that we need. There is a lot of interest in doing a farmers market and if we’re gonna do it, we might as well go big.”
Council member Steve Goble said, “This is what we have been working on for years, to get more people into downtown. I think its brilliant to bring in vendors that have their own following.”
Councilmember Phil Ortiz stated, “I love the idea. It’s fantastic. This downtown area is unique to the East County area because we have so many different areas where we can have larger events other cities can’t, because they don’t have that kind of space. The only other downtown place is La Mesa and they only have that one strip, but we have Centennial Park, we have the promenade a lot of different areas.”
City Manager Graham Mitchell said staff would “come back with a formal package later for the Council” but that he wanted to wait till he saw if Council had interest to save staff from doing the work if council did not want to move forward.
The three projects proposed by the City Manager for the remaining ARPA funds.
Mitchell brought three different proposals to the Council in order to use the $4 million in American Rescue Funds Act (ARPA) funds that the city had set aside to use for economic development before those funds expire in 2024. ARPA monies are federal funds given to state and local governments that can be used to do many different things after the pandemic to keep communities, businesses and cities thriving, such as making necessary investments in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, providing additional assistance to households, small businesses, and nonprofits, granting assistance to impacted industries, including tourism, travel, and hospitality, as well as capital expenditures to assist in an eligible COVID-19 economic response. This means the development of infrastructure projects like healthcare and childcare facilities, schools, and housing just to name a few.
El Cajon came up with creative solutions to add benefits to businesses, and housing.
Mitchell said staff’s objectives for the three proposals were to “leverage funds for lasting projects, create ongoing revenue and savings, catalyst project for private investment and provide community benefit.”
Food Hall
The first proposal is a food Hall similar to what Little Italy, Del Mar Heights and Liberty station already have. The concept includes an impressive, estimated price tag of $870,000 to get the project underway. This proposal is a way for restaurant owners to try out the area and keeps overhead low for business owners by having a shared kitchen and common eating areas. Residents can enjoy a place with several options that might rotate as these businesses work their way to their own brick and mortar.
Mitchell said there were two obstacles restaurant owners face. ”It takes a tremendous amount of capital to open a restaurant” and “there are a lot of entrepreneurs countywide that have thriving restaurants in their locations, but coming to an unknown market such as East County is sometimes a risk so this helps eliminate the risks by dipping a toe into the water and get a feel for the market here.”
Mitchell said that under this model the City would “secure the building lease, select a management company and purchase the mini kitchen equipment.” Mitchell added that the management company then would “handle all day-to-day operations, assume the lease from the city, and provide technical assistance to the restaurants.”
Mitchell explained the breakdown on the $870,000 investment as $270,000 for the initial 18-month lease, and the mini kitchen equipment to cost $600,000 total if they had six stations at $100,000 each.
Councilmember Phil Ortiz said, “I love this idea. I would especially love it if it was in the downtown area.” Mitchell agreed and responded, “This probably only works in the downtown.“
Councilmember Goble asked, “Tenant improvements? I see equipment, I see a lease?” Mitchell responded, “Yeah, we would like to avoid tenant improvement to have the market manager do that, partially because it triggers prevailing wages and would ultimately be cheaper. “
Motel Redevelopment Project
The second proposal was to purchase two parcels next to each other on Main street that currently have a Travelodge hotel and what was Kozak’s Restaurant for decades and change it to a mixed use project with retail and housing. Mitchell said, “Council directed staff to look at some of our failing or substandard motels to see if there are opportunities to develop them.” He noted that his staff “talked to quite a few motel operators in the city and continue to work with a couple on it but one of the motels that we did discuss with Council, and the Council allocated funding for it in appraisal, is the Travelodge on West Main Street.”
Mitchell said, “The purpose of this redevelopment project is to use the purchase of it to help assemble a larger two-acre area around it and use it primarily for housing.” Mitchel mentioned the City Venture project just a few blocks west of the Travelodge and that both of these together create “an interesting linkage into downtown.”
Mitchell explained that this project would be allowed through zoning to have 40 units per acre giving a total of 80 units for the project. The property did appraise for $4.5 million dollars and is over their $4 million dollar budget, but Mitchell said, “The city could assist in purchase of the motel property or assist a developer with off-site improvements.”
Councilmember Metschel asked, “If we were to go forward with this particular project, that takes one of those motels that has been used for hotel vouchers offline and makes it more into housing?” Mitchell replied that “44 units would come off the motel inventory which would help the other motels.”
Ortiz said, “We are operating off the assumption that the owner wants to sell?” Mitchell responded, “That is correct.”
Small Business Incubators and Accelerators
Mitchell said, “We have been talking a long time about helping to get a small business incubator or accelerator launched and moving in our community. There is a lot of opportunity for the City to purchase a building right now that’s on the market or about to come on the market that we would purchase, secure an operator to operate it and provide incubator support” that the operator would provide.” Mitchell said this could be a restaurant or some other kind of business opportunity but that the operator would provide “training and cooking space, provide tasting and serving opportunities and help secure investors, mentoring and the business writing plan and help launch them.”
Most incubators operate where there is some upfront assistance in the beginning, he explained. “You become successful and move on and some of their earnings go back into the organization that provides continuity and helps the next business.”
Mitchell said this proposal could be around $2.5 million to purchase the building along with some basic renovations.Proceeds of the rent that would be generated would then be put back into the generator and that would be the city’s contribution so it could go on and on and the ARPA funds could be used one time but continued to be put back into the incubator.”
Mitchell said that there are more projects presented here than funding. One or more of these projects might not move forward for various reasons, each has a various return on investment and other funding such as one-time monies could be added if Council approves. Mitchell was looking for direction from the Council.
Councilmember Metschel said, “Since we are working on the farmers market, I would like to move the motel up to first place and make that a priority then possibly the incubator and then go to the food hall.” Metschel said she thought these were great projects “and would bring a lot of interest. Like you say we have a lot of entrepreneurs, and they just need that space. That little bit of guidance to take them to the next step, and why not provide something that lets our residents become business owners.”
Councilmember Gary Kendrick said, “I like the prioritization that Mitchell has pointed out.
When Councilmember Ortiz asked what the timeline was to spend the ARPA funds by, Mitchell explained that the deadline is December 2024 and emphasized there was urgency in that timeline.
Ortiz said, “I love all three of them, the motel for obvious reasons. I would love to line up that City Ventures project with that property.” Ortiz said that he would be willing to dip into reserves for the food hall but his top two would be the motel and incubator.
Council member Goble said, “My first was the food hall because, I think that is the most quick way to get to one place. I would reserve one of the spots perhaps for a local start up contest.” Goble said number two for him was the incubator and motel third because he said he didn’t “see us spending that kind of money in 15 months because the former Kozack’s restaurant is one parcel, the motel is a separate parcel and a developer in 15 months has to close a deal on the acquisition of those two parcel for development.”
Mayor Bill Wells said, “I think the motel and food hall are both really good ideas. I need more info about the incubator before I can give you more feedback.”
Mitchell said staff would “look into all three projects and make them actual action items in the near future.”
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