The boarded-up shell of the Broad Street Market’s brick building
For over 10 months, the brick building of Harrisburg’s historic Broad Street Market has sat languishing as a burned-out shell, a sad, charred ruin of a once bustling market building.
Thanks to City Council, it will linger, untouched, roofless, blighted, wrecked for the foreseeable future.
On Tuesday, council, by a 5-2 vote, rejected the city’s administration’s choice of a construction manager, sending the nascent rebuilding process back to square one.
This rejection is but the latest frustrating, dispiriting twist in a long saga that began last July 10, when the 150-year-old brick building was consumed in an early-morning blaze.
After the smoke cleared, city and state officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, stood with great resolve in front of the destroyed building, vowing to marshal all of the government’s resources to restore the market to its former glory—maybe even better—as soon as possible.
But, long story short, that’s not what happened. Instead, the project languished.
City Council’s rejection showed, in the starkest way, that the slow walk continues.
On Tuesday, several council members voted “no” to the administration’s choice of a construction manager by stating that they wanted to ensure equity in public contracting.
Administration officials countered that their months-long process for selecting the manager was fair, rigorous and data-driven, adding that the choice, Harrisburg-based Alexander Building Construction, is uniquely qualified to tackle a complex, historic restoration of this scale and sensitivity.
Stuck in the middle of this dispute: the community, the shoppers, the vendors and the Broad Street Market itself.
The people of Harrisburg need the brick building restored as quickly as possible, by the most competent managers and workers out there. This should be our elected officials’ No. 1 priority, above all else.
We simply cannot wait another six months for the selection process to run its course again, which would bring us to mid-winter, meaning that work wouldn’t start until spring 2025.
Such a delay also means that the city’s deal with Josh Kesler, who kindly donated his land for the temporary market, will certainly expire before the building restoration is done. As per the lease agreement, the no-rent deal is good for just two years. Starting in January 2026, the city is on the hook to pay Kesler $5,000 in rent per month for continued use of the lot — $6,500 a month after January 2027.
This isn’t the first time that City Council has failed the market. In the past, I’ve called on council to make a special appropriation to the market, as it does to many other nonprofits. Council hasn’t done so, even when, a few months back, the market descended into insolvency, unable to pay its bills.
Who did step up? The Harrisburg community. Hundreds of people generously donated their money, time and talents so the market could continue operating and so that the temporary market could be completed. Without this small army of volunteers, the temporary building, which is city-owned, certainly would not be opening next Thursday, which is the current plan.
In the end, City Council should reconsider its construction manager vote.
The Broad Street Market is not just another building. It’s a vital food resource, a historic city asset, a tourist destination and an important community hub, one of the few places here where people of all backgrounds gather to shop, eat and socialize. It’s the beating heart of Harrisburg and needs to be respected, restored and returned again to city residents as quickly as possible.
Lawrance Binda is publisher/editor of TheBurg.
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