The Old Town Scottsdale Farmers Market has been closed since June, the way it always is once the heat sets in. It reopens every October at 8 a.m. on Saturdays, the same ritual it has run since 2009. This year, when the tents go back up, they will not go up on Brown Avenue.
After sixteen straight seasons in the same city-owned parking structure at First Street and Brown Avenue, the market is relocating to the surface lot at Scottsdale City Hall, at 75th Street and Bennie Gonzales Way. The address is the easy part of this story. The more interesting part is what the new lot lets the market do that the old one never could.
A Garage Was Never Built For This
The Brown Avenue site, known to the city as the Parking Corral, was a two-level structure: one level at surface grade, one below ground. It's functional for cars. It's less forgiving for a hundred-plus vendor tents, columns, and Saturday morning foot traffic threading between them. For years, the market has reportedly had to turn down new vendor applications simply because there was no more room to add them within that footprint, capping the roster at roughly 107 vendors even as demand to join kept coming.
That ceiling is the detail that gets lost in every version of this story that only covers the move. The market wasn't just full. It was structurally incapable of growing, because the structure itself was the limit.
The City Hall lot is open-air surface parking, no columns, no low garage ceiling. Whether the market actually expands past its old vendor count is something only the first few Saturdays in October will show, but the physical excuse for staying capped is gone.
| Brown Avenue (through June 2026) | City Hall Lot (starting October 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | First St. & Brown Ave. | 75th St. & Bennie Gonzales Way |
| Format | Parking garage, surface + underground level | Open surface lot |
| Vendors | Roughly 100 to 107, at capacity | Same for now, room to grow |
| Hours | Oct-Apr 8am-1pm, May 8am-noon, June 7-10am | Unchanged |
| Years at location | 16 | New |
The Space Was Needed For Something Else
The market didn't leave Brown Avenue by choice. The city is adding two levels to the existing garage, a project that traces back to a 2019 voter-approved bond and a 2024 council directive to move forward with construction. The finished structure will add 185 parking stalls, aimed at chronic Old Town parking shortages that get worse every spring training season.
Crews began the first phase of work in late June 2026, reinforcing the existing garage so it can carry two more floors above it. The city expects the new stalls to open to the public in spring 2027, with architectural details and landscaping continuing through the following summer. Until then, the lot that hosted a farmers market every Saturday morning for sixteen years is a construction site.
City Manager Greg Caton framed the relocation as a way to keep the market close to home while the work happens elsewhere:
"The farmers market is one of Scottsdale's most loved traditions. Moving it to City Hall keeps it close to the heart of Old Town and gives vendors and visitors the space they need while we make improvements elsewhere. It's a win for residents, small businesses and the community as a whole."
The Vote Nobody Agreed On
None of this happened quietly. The council approved the expansion in a 5-2 vote in April 2026, and the two no votes came from opposite directions. Mayor Lisa Borowsky argued the chosen site "couldn't be in a worse area," warning it would undermine efforts to revitalize Old Town rather than help it. Councilwoman Solange Whitehead voted no on fiscal grounds, saying flatly that "major taxpayer investments must be supported by data."
Vice Mayor Adam Kwasman made the case for building now rather than later, pointing to the growing crowds Old Town already draws and the parking crunch that comes with them. A citizen group calling itself Save Old Town Scottsdale disagreed loudly enough to gather a petition, certified by the city at more than 4,500 signatures, asking the council to cancel the contract outright. Close to 20 residents and business owners spoke at the public hearing, most of them against the project.
The Number That Moved
One detail worth sitting with: the price tag changed shape as the project moved from vote to signed contract. When the council approved the expansion in April, the figure attached to it was $20.9 million. By July, when the council signed off on the actual construction contract with Chasse Building Team, the total guaranteed maximum cost had settled closer to $16.28 million. Cafe owner and council candidate Crystal Carroll, speaking against the project earlier in the process, put the cost at roughly $90,000 per new parking stall, about triple the national average for structured parking.
None of that changes where the market ends up this fall. It's a reminder that the number quoted during the loudest part of a fight and the number in the final contract are rarely the same one, and residents who only caught the April headline are working from an outdated figure.
What Doesn't Change
For everyone whose Saturday actually revolves around this market, the constants matter more than the controversy. The schedule holds: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. from October through April, shortening to noon in May and to a 7 to 10 a.m. window in June before the summer closure. It's still dog-friendly. Vendors still bring the same mix that's built the market's reputation over sixteen years, from fresh produce and free-range eggs to baked goods and prepared food stalls that regulars already have opinions about. The only thing moving is the ground under the tents.
The Same Six Weeks, A Fuller Calendar
The market's return lands in the middle of an unusually stacked stretch for Old Town. Fall Arizona Restaurant Week runs September 18 through 27, with participating kitchens across the area running prix-fixe menus for ten days. That same weekend, WestWorld hosts the 15th anniversary of Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market from September 18 to 20, drawing more than 160 vintage dealers into 100,000 square feet of floor space. A few blocks over, Bonner David Galleries opened Flourish, a solo exhibition from artist Hunt Slonem, on September 10, running through October 31 with a public reception on October 1.
None of these events depend on each other, but they land close enough together that a resident planning a normal fall weekend in Old Town is going to bump into more of them than usual. The farmers market's move just adds one more line to that same calendar, at a new address, at the same time everything else in the neighborhood picked up its pace for the season.
Why This Is Worth Tracking
A parking garage getting two more floors is not, on its own, a story that changes how anyone spends a Saturday. A market that's been quietly turning away new vendors for years, moving into a space with no obvious ceiling on how big it can get, is a different kind of story. The first few weekends at City Hall will show whether that room actually gets used, whether the vendor roster grows past its old cap, and whether the open lot changes the pace of the whole morning. Worth checking back in on once the tents are up.
Artie Baxter lives and works in these neighborhoods, watching the small shifts that shape daily life here as closely as the ones that shape the market for a home. If you're curious what else is changing in Old Town, Paradise Valley, Arcadia, or Silverleaf, or you're ready to talk about property in any of them, Artie Baxter is glad to make time. Book an appointment when you're ready.
