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CHARLESTON Charleston's open air City Market, one of the most popular visitor attractions in South Carolina, is getting a $5 million face-lift, city officials said Tuesday.
Millions of visitors come to the market each year to buy everything from sweetgrass baskets and local art to jewelry and regional foods.
"Few visitors to Charleston would consider a visit to Charleston complete if they don't come to the City Market," said Mayor Joseph Riley. "We want to make sure our local citizens see this as a personal treasure for them as well."
Work begins in January on repairing roofs, painting, repointing brick, adding signs and other upgrades to the existing market buildings which date to the early 1800s and were last improved more than 35 years ago.
The work is expected to be finished by spring, the busiest tourist season, and during the renovations vendors will move into the street under tents.
The market has 265 vendors, including 17 in enclosed shops in the market building. Renovating that building is expected to begin later next year.
Hank Holiday, a principal in the City Market Preservation Trust which submitted the winning proposal for the renovation, said the group visited markets in Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco.
"We have studied every major public market in the United States," he said. "We think the Charleston City Market is the most valuable commercial real estate in the Southeastern United States and we think it has vast room for improvement."
The market land was ceded to Charleston in 1788 by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, with the provision it always be used for a public market.
In earlier times, market butchers would throw scraps into the street, attracting buzzards that were dubbed Charleston eagles.
Riley said the market renovation in the 1970s was a catalyst for the renaissance in Charleston during the past three decades.
Holiday said the new project will lead to more improvements, drawing locals as well as tourists to the market area.
"We expect it will have benefits to the surrounding community when we make this sort of investment in time and effort and money," he said. "We expect the surrounding stores will also benefit and also be in a position to upgrade and expand."
