The Broad Street Market.
The Broad Street Market board of directors has elected Joshua Kesler, a local developer who most recently opened the Millworks farm-to-table restaurant in Midtown, as its new president, the market manager said Monday.
Kesler, 39, took over at the beginning of this month for Jonathan Bowser, who announced his resignation in May. Kesler was elected at the board’s June meeting and agreed to succeed Bowser for a two-year term, said interim market manager Ashlee Dugan.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release last week of a 13-page report by the Broad Street Market task force, which was appointed in early 2014 by Mayor Eric Papenfuse to examine the market’s operations.
Among other things, the report urged the market to shed its current management structure, which involves a private corporation owned by the non-profit Historic Harrisburg Association, in favor of a single, independent non-profit that might be better positioned to solicit grants and donations.
A market press release cited this recommendation Monday, saying that Kesler planned to oversee the transition to non-profit status during his term.
Kesler, who once described himself for a story in this magazine as a “serial risk-taker,” has been active in a number of Harrisburg ventures in recent years.
He was a founding partner of Savannah’s on Hanna, a club off South Cameron Street that opened in 2009, but is no longer involved. Earlier this year, he completed the renovation of the Millworks building next door to the market into a farm-to-table restaurant adjoined by a suite of artists’ studios.
He was also a co-founder, along with Dugan and Julia James, of the Broad Street Market Alliance, which called for the market to revise its structure and improve its offerings in the fall of 2013.
James and Kesler are now two of seven members on the market board, which is looking to fill two vacancies, Dugan said. In addition to Bowser, board member Bret Kiesling gave up his seat at the start of July.
