When the Smithfield Farmers Market returns to the Bank of Southside Virginia parking lot on April 5, it will mark the beginning of the end for the market’s 22-year tenure at that location.

Town and Isle of Wight County officials say they’ve been told by the bank that the market will need a new home come 2026. It’s a possibility they’ve long feared.

“It’s been in the air for a while, but we’ve always been able to secure the location,” Town Manager Michael Stallings told the Town Council on Feb. 24. “This is the first time we have definitely been told you need to go find somewhere else.”

The award-winning weekly market, which is run by Smithfield’s and Isle of Wight County’s shared tourism department, has operated out of the bank parking lot since it began as the Olde Towne Curb Market in 2003. The market’s last five-year lease expired in 2022. Since then, it has operated under one-year extensions of that lease. County Attorney Bobby Jones told Isle of Wight supervisors last fall that it had taken from April through September 2024 to negotiate the extension for the 2025 season.

The bank did not immediately return a Times request for comments. Stallings told the Times that the town was recently “told verbally that after December we should be looking for a new location.”

“We have a group established to evaluate any and all options for alternative locations for the market,” Stallings said. “We will be evaluating all options through that process.”

According to Stallings, the group includes himself, county administration and tourism and farmers market staff. It is separate from the committee that Councilman Jeff Brooks had asked in January that Mayor Mike Smith create to vet the idea of relocating the farmers market. That council-level committee has not yet been formed, Stallings said.

Fear of losing the parking lot lease has overshadowed a years-long debate over whether to commit town and county taxpayer dollars toward moving the market to the Grange at 10Main development proposed for 57 acres at the western edge of the town’s historic district. Grange developer Joseph Luter IV and his father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, in 2022 offered land and partial funding for a brick indoor-outdoor structure that would house the market and anchor the Grange’s commercial phase, conditioned on the Town Council and county Board of Supervisors each putting up $1.4 million toward the cost. Both governing bodies voted to accept the offer in 2022.

Only the supervisors to date have made good on the commitment by voting last year to formally transfer the county’s share to the county Economic Development Authority, which has agreed to serve as landlord for the structure that would house the market and a restaurant. Smithfield Mayor Mike Smith and three new council members elected last year said during their respective campaigns that they opposed following through with the prior council’s commitment.

Though several market vendors last year said they supported moving the market to the Grange, “a lot of citizens” still “don’t support the $2.8 million that’s coming out of taxpayer pockets for this project,” said Councilman Darren Cutler, among the trio of newcomers who won seats in November’s election.

Even if the new council members vote to proceed with moving the market to the Grange, it would likely take more than a year to complete the structure, meaning the market would need an interim home.

“Our back’s kind of against the wall,” Cutler said.

Tourism Director Judy Winslow said there are backup plans, though “none of them are optimal.”

“If push came to shove tomorrow, could we find somewhere else to put the market temporarily, the answer is yes,” Stallings said. “What we want to identify is a place we can put the market for a long-term temporary solution that is viable, that we can replicate every weekend.”

That rules out the possibility of closing Main Street to allow vendors to set up alongside the road like they do for the annual Arts Fest in May or the Mistletoe Market in late November, he said.

“We could do that one weekend or two weekends, but the problem becomes staffing,” Stallings said. “The amount of public works and police staff it takes to close Main Street and support that, we can do it a couple times, but I can’t ask my staff to work six days a week every week. That’s just not doable.”

Councilman Steve Bowman said the solution would also have to be “palatable” to vendors and to patrons of the market. Councilwoman Mary Ellen Bebermeyer, also elected in November, questioned whether patrons of the market, should it move to the Grange, would make their way on foot to the heart of downtown to patronize the brick-and-mortar restaurants and stores along Main Street the way they do now.

Stallings said there had been negotiations regarding the town potentially purchasing part or all of the bank property, which would have allowed the market to remain there, but those talks fell through.

“All indications were pointed this is a green light, and then last minute we just found out it wasn’t,” Stalings said.