Art & Invention Gallery as a retail prototype for a store in the Eastern Market area

Image: Nashville Art & Invention Gallery.

So #1, DC's Eastern Market has weekend crafts and artists vendors selling their wares.

So #2, the Eastern Market area is comparatively "dead" during the week, even though the Market building is open Tuesday to Friday as well, from 7am to 7pm.

While night-time farmers markets at least one day of the week aren't unusual (e.g., the NoMA district has an early evening farmers market on Wednesdays and there is a Tuesday evening market in Brookland near the Metro Station, etc.), it would be nice to have a night market one evening per week at Eastern Market, but this is difficult to do for many reasons, including the fact that the market is surrounded by residences.

-- Brooklyn Night Bazaar, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

-- Surf City Nights, Huntington Beach, California

So #3, the old Hine Junior High School site is being redeveloped into a mixed use project.

So #4, why not have one of the retail businesses in there be something like the Art & Invention Gallery in East Nashville?

It's a gallery space that sells art and crafts items by local artists and artisans. They have shows and workshops.

It would leverage the existing weekend art and crafts vending by having a more permanent 7 day presence in a brick and mortar shop and could be set up as a co-operative type operation as well, as a part of both Eastern Market and maybe other arts-related organizations in the area including the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and maybe the Hill Center.

It could develop arts entrepreneurship and training programs (MICA certificate program in "The Business of Art and Design") and be an arts-business related incubator, leveraging and extending the ability of outdoor markets to promote business development.

See this webpage "Measuring the Impact of Public Markets and Farmers Markets on Local Economies" and the report, Public Markets as a Vehicle for Social Integration and Upward Mobility from Project for Public Spaces for resources.