"I do not want the farmers market to relocate," Scottsdale Mayor Lisa Borowsky told the council in January. "I want them to stay right where they are."
She lost that argument months ago, and the market's new home opens October 3. If you've spent Saturday mornings walking the aisles at Brown Avenue for produce and tamales since the market planted itself there in 2009, you already know the short version: the parking structure that's housed the market for sixteen years is getting two more levels, so the market has to go. What most residents haven't heard is how close the move came to happening with no transition plan at all, and how unsettled the whole premise still is at the political level. That's the part worth understanding before you build a new Saturday habit around City Hall.
What Actually Changes on October 3
The new site is the surface lot at 75th Street and Bennie Gonzales Way, right next to Scottsdale's Civic Center. The market's own operator, Arizona Community Farmers Markets, already lists the new location on its site with an October 3 opening and the familiar 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday window running through April, then shortening in May and June the way it always has for the summer heat.
Here's what carries over intact:
- The same roughly 100 vendors, including names regulars already know like Mama's Cold Brew, Milly Moon Kombucha, and McClendon Select
- The same Saturday-morning format, dog-friendly and stroller-friendly
- The same SNAP, WIC, and Arizona Farmers Market Nutrition Program voucher acceptance
- The same role in Old Town's calendar, including Western Week, Scottsdazzle, and June Days
Here's what's different: the setting. Brown Avenue put the market on top of a parking structure. City Hall puts it on a surface lot next to the Civic Center's lawns and the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts grounds, a greener backdrop than a garage deck, even if "parking lot" is the phrase that stuck in council meetings and made some longtime shoppers wince before they'd seen it. City staffer Rachel Spentana put it plainly when she presented the site plan to council: "We are excited to have them move closer to the Civic Center."
Not everyone shares that excitement. At the same meeting, resident Steve Sutton told the council flatly, "My customers do not want to go to the farmers market at the City Hall parking lot." Whether that skepticism holds once people actually walk the new lot on October 3 is the kind of thing you find out by showing up, not by reading a press release.
The Agreement That Almost Expired Overnight
Here's the part that didn't make most of the coverage. When the council voted November 17, 2025 to approve the City Hall relocation, the original contract language would have terminated the market's existing agreement at Brown Avenue immediately, with the new site not kicking in until October 2026. That's an eleven-month gap with no market at all. The city attorney caught the drafting error during the meeting itself, and council amended the motion on the spot to keep the market running at its current site until both sides agreed on a transition date.
Councilmember Solange Whitehead was the one who moved to fix it, tying the current agreement's expiration to "a mutually acceptable date" rather than a fixed calendar deadline. It's a small procedural save, but it's worth knowing about if you assumed this whole handoff was buttoned up back in November. It wasn't. The market kept running through this year on borrowed time, patched together by an amendment made in real time at a council podium.
Two Officials, One Ribbon Cutting, Different Stories
The relocation is being framed publicly as a clean win. City Manager Greg Caton's official line, repeated in press materials, is that the move "keeps it close to the heart of Old Town and gives vendors and visitors the space they need while we make improvements elsewhere."
Behind that framing sits a genuine disagreement between the two council members most associated with the outcome. At a January "downtown summit," Whitehead said she, Councilwoman Maryanne McAllen, and Mayor Borowsky led the charge to find the new site. Borowsky called that characterization inaccurate. Her actual position, on the record, is that she never wanted the market to move in the first place and that the parking garage forcing the move is unnecessary. She's called the garage's location "terrible" and said "no one wants to see them displaced by an unsightly parking garage which is set to be built in a terrible location."
That's not a footnote. It means the sitting mayor of Scottsdale is on record opposing the underlying project that's pushing your Saturday market three-quarters of a mile from where you're used to finding it. The garage itself has drawn a certified citizen petition with more than 4,500 signatures and an active advocacy campaign from a group calling itself Save Old Town Scottsdale, which has labeled the planned structure a "monstrosity." None of that has stopped construction. Crews began the first phase of work on the Brown Avenue structure on June 29, 2026, and in July the council approved the final construction contract, bringing the project's total guaranteed maximum cost to $16.28 million for 185 new public parking spaces, with completion targeted for spring 2027 in time for spring training crowds.
Why This Season Is a Trial Run, Not a New Tradition
Put the pieces together and the honest read is this: the City Hall lot is where the market will be on October 3, but nothing about the arrangement carries the weight of permanence. The transition happened because of an amendment fixing a paperwork mistake, not a settled master plan. The mayor who's supposed to be cutting ribbons on this outcome has said publicly she didn't want it to happen and doesn't think the garage forcing it belongs where it's being built. And the garage itself remains contested enough that a resident group is still actively campaigning against it while the concrete goes up anyway.
None of that should keep you from showing up October 3. The vendors are the same, the hours are the same, and by most accounts the new lot's proximity to the Civic Center lawns might turn out to be a nicer morning than a parking deck ever was. But if you're the kind of resident who plans a whole Saturday around this market the way people plan a Sunday around a favorite trail, it's worth watching city council through this season rather than assuming the City Hall address is where you'll be finding your Sonoran sourdough five years from now. Scottsdale politics on this particular topic have already produced one near miss. It's reasonable to expect at least one more council meeting before the story is actually finished.
If you're settling into Old Town life and want a longtime local's read on the neighborhood beyond Saturday mornings, the team at ROCO Luxury Homes spends as much time following Scottsdale city council as we do walking these blocks ourselves. Book a Private Consultation with us if you'd like a conversation grounded in what's actually happening on the ground here, not just what the listing photos show.
