After decades of interest and multiple false starts, James Beard Public Market is finally a go

The idea for a Portland food hall similar to Seattle’s Pike Place Market has been around for more than two decades, but up until recently it was just that — an idea, with the main hurdle being where to put it. Now a location has been secured: a pair of buildings at the corner of Southwest 6th Avenue and Alder Street in downtown Portland. James Beard Public Market Executive Director Jessica Elkan spoke with OPB’s “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori to discuss the history, vision and timeline for the project.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Crystal Ligori: The idea for James Beard Public Market has been more than two decades in the making, so can we start with some history about this project?

Jessica Elkan: In the early 2000s a group of civic and community leaders led by Ron Paul came together to talk about the concept of another public market opening in Portland. One of the things that really differentiates this market is the fact that James Beard is from here, and Ron worked with the James Beard Foundation to get the rights to be able to use that name for our public market, which is such a legacy for us.

A lot of the public markets around the world are operated, or the buildings are given, by the local government. We knew that that may not be feasible here, so we needed to figure out how to make the business model work so we’re not passing the costs associated with that real estate on to our vendors. It’s finding that right balance of the right place, the right business model, and how it all works to serve our mission, which is to support vendors to provide local, sustainable food to the community.

This is an opportunity to really solidify our place as a culinary capital of the world, to create a front door to Oregon’s bounty, and provide entrepreneurial opportunities to small businesses in the heart of our city. This really is the anchor tenant for Portland’s renaissance — Portland’s kitchen next to Portland’s living room.

Ligori: One of the things you’ve spoken about is this being a “market for all”. Can you talk more about what that means?

Elkan: We hope to offer different ways for people who are on different kinds of food subsidies to be able to access the market. We want this to be a place where people from all different economic backgrounds, all demographics can feel that this is a place where they can access food. I imagine school children coming in and learning about nutrition and being able to meet farmers and growers and having that direct access. I see this as part of how we educate and provide nutrition to young people, and that’s something I’m really excited about.

The teaching kitchen that we have in the space is really going to be the epicenter of activity and excitement, but that will filter out to all of the market stalls, prepared foods, fresh local produce. We’ll have a cheese shop, a butcher shop, a place where you can get fresh fish and an incredible provisions area with chocolate, coffee and flowers — all of the things you would see at other great markets but with all of that being Oregon products.

Ligori: The James Beard Public Market has been close to happening a few times before. What makes this time different?

Elkan: I think that’s fair. This is really about the right time and place, but it’s also about public-private partnership and that is really a key component of why this is different. We have a fourth generation family, the Schlesinger family, that is supporting this project. Their building is the Selling Building and working with us, being a partner in this vision, and then the building next door, being able to purchase a building at a below-market rate gives us an opportunity to have that flexibility to really dream big.

Ligori: So when can we expect the market to be open?

Elkan: We are hopeful that we will complete the first phase of our fundraising to purchase the building before the end of the year. And then starting our next phase of our capital campaign in January, which is for the construction and tenant improvements to build up the space. Of course, there’s permitting and design reviews and all of those wonderful things that go into a project like this, but we wanna be bold, we wanna be ambitious and we want to see this project be done by spring of 2026. And start activating some of the space a little bit earlier to create that excitement and also just bring people to downtown. Start with pop-ups and some fun things to get people dreaming about what’s possible with this market.