NORTHPORT | A farmers market on Fifth Avenue near downtown Northport is gaining in popularity, so much so that the Tuscaloosa County Truck growers Association is building a permanent structure to accommodate it.
“Crowds have been growing every week,” said David Dowdy, president of the Tuscaloosa County Truck growers Association. “We had a tremendous crowd last week, which makes us kind of concerned about parking with all the construction going on.”
An open-air building, which will also feature a meeting room and restrooms, will be 144 feet long and 40 feet wide, about the size of the former Tuscaloosa Farmers Market at the corner of Greensboro Avenue and Jack Warner Parkway. The new farmers market building in Northport, which is still under construction and should be finished by the end of July, will include 24 vendor booths. The posts were installed this week to support pavilion type building. Concrete and plumbing should be done in the next couple of weeks, Dowdy said. It’s a new start for an organization that cut its ties with Tuscaloosa when the city opened its own River Market earlier this year, just down the street from the old one on Jack Warner Parkway. The Truckgrowers Association, which managed the Tuscaloosa Farmers Market prior to the opening of the River Market, decided to open its own market in Northport instead of moving to the River Market, because of concerns over the River Market.
