Booted by town, popular NC farmers market to build permanent home, founder says
A popular longtime Lake Norman outdoor farmers market has finally found a permanent home — back where it was before government fines forced its removal, its founder said Monday.
Josh’s Farmers Market intends to build a 6,700-square-foot permanent indoor market and adjoining outdoor seasonal areas on the Lowe’s YMCA campus in Mooresville, Josh Graham said in a statement with Sue Glass, president and CEO of YMCA of Greater Charlotte.
Josh’s operated in a field beside the YMCA on Joe V. Knox Avenue from 2021 through 2023.
The nearly 20-year-old market was forced to move to temporary sites elsewhere in town after Mooresville found Josh’s out of compliance with new zoning rules and imposed daily fines, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Mooresville levied the fines because the town considered Josh’s to be a “full-time retail establishment,” not an “outdoor seasonal sales market,” town officials said in a news release posted on Facebook, NextDoor and other platforms in October 2022.
Josh’s had to operate in a building, like the town’s 1,800 other retailers do, town officials said.
An “understanding” that Josh’s would leave Lowe’s YMCA was reached during a meeting involving YMCA, the town of Mooresville and market officials, according to a YMCA statement at the time.
In January 2023, Josh’s lost its appeal of the fines before the Mooresville Board of Adjustment.
The town later issued four-month temporary outdoor seasonal sales permits to Josh’s, first for 630 Brawley School Road near the Harris Teeter-anchored Shoppes at Morrison Plantation, and then at 558 River Highway (N.C. 150).
In February, the Mooresville Board of Commissioners voted to add an open-air agricultural market land use to the town zoning ordinance.
The vote culminated months of work with the market by all seven Mooresville elected officials, Mayor Chris Carney said at the time.
Commissioner Gary West made the motion to accept the new land use designation, relieving Josh‘s of its itinerant status despite the business being a fixture in town since the 1990s.
“This is a step in the right direction,” West said. “The change will allow Josh‘s Farmers Market, as well as others, to operate on the business models they were founded on. Let’s put this behind us and move forward.”
Site preparation and construction is expected to begin this fall on four acres of unused YMCA green space off Joe Knox Avenue. The market is expected to open in the spring.
On Monday, Glass said YMCA officials “are thrilled” to welcome the market back.
The move “expands access to healthy food for our members, program participants and the broader Mooresville community,” she said.
Graham noted his market’s “deep roots in Mooresville.”
“This location helps us serve more community members with fresh, local produce and goods, while creating a welcoming space where the community can gather,” he said.