.	El Mercado Feasibility Study 1998 Nueva Esperanza, Inc., a community development corporation in South Holyoke, proposes to develop an indoor vendors market or Mercado on South Holyoke's Main Street. The Urban Places Project worked on the architectural and economic feasibility of the market. Construction is under way in 1998. The Mercado will complement a number of other initiatives in the neighborhood including a Centro Agricola , a center for urban agriculture run by community gardeners; the South Holyoke Improvement Association (SHIA), an organization of South Holyoke merchants; a facade improvements program, called "Caribbean Colors"; small business development programs; and NEI's South Holyoke Neighborhood Development Plan: 1997-2012. The Mercado project will provide several important improvements to the neighborhood including: providing local entrepreneurs with a retail incubator; increasing the availability of goods and services in the neighborhood; improving the business climate in the neighborhood; contributing to a general physical upgrading of the Main Street business area; creating a valuable business training opportunity for young people; and providing a new "public" gathering space that will have an important social role in the neighborhood. Case studies from indoor and outdoor vendors markets around the country highlighted several key issues especially the challenges of developing a market in a neighborhood with low purchasing power.

Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning
University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA 01003, USA

Last Modified May 1998
upp@larp.umass.edu
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~upp