Someday, Capitol Hill’s farmers market will stretch out inside the plaza in the middle of the under construction development projects around Capitol Hill Station. The expansion will also likely mean added days of market shopping. For now, you can find the market every Sunday along Broadway just north of Pine.

“For 25 years we’ve been running markets with the core of providing a direct, sustainable marketplace for farmers,” said Leah Litwak, Capitol Hill’s market manager for nearly two years following her tenure at the parent organization.

The Capitol Hill Farmers Market officially went year-round in 2014 and has thrived since, regularly hosting local vendors from produce to prepared foods, craft brews, raw honey, and fresh-cut flowers.

“This is a community center on Sundays. This is the place to be,” Litwak said. “We have hot food options, people can eat lunch or breakfast here, people can buy their groceries — there’s really everything you need here at the market.”

The Capitol Hill Farmers Market is one of seven Seattle markets organized under the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, a federally-recognized nonprofit. The original market in University District was founded by Chris Curtis and local volunteers in 1993, gaining 501(c)3 status in 2001 and opening the market on Broadway in 2005.

The plan had been for the market to move onto Nagle Place after construction of the light rail station was completed but organizers decided to hold off on the move. It held its last market at its former Capitol Hill home at 10th and Thomas in 2010 before making way for redevelopment on that block. By 2019 or 2020, the market will move again. The plaza above the light rail station “will be available for public use” and include “a weekly morning to afternoon year-round farmers market” planned for both the plaza and along Denny Way. A Memorial Pathway to honor the fight against HIV/AIDS will connect the plaza to Cal Anderson. Four seven-story mixed-use buildings with a mix of market-rate and affordable units will surround the plaza, the market, and Capitol Hill’s light rail station. CHS reported earlier this year that H Mart is in talks, meanwhile, to add to the grocery and shopping opportunities in the development.

The farmers market is ready to fit into that future.

“We provide some really wonderful food access programs. We started the Fresh Bucks program and it has since been taken over by the city and grown with grant funding,”Litwak said.

“We’re also able to provide to everyone in the community and break down those barriers that would keep people from going to the farmers market.”

Litwak didn’t want to choose favorites among this year’s crop of vendors but did highlight Tonnemaker Family Orchard, part of the market going back to the earliest days in the U District in 1993. Describing Capitol Hill as an “experimental market” in which the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance tries new vendors out in a neighborhood where people will try new things, she noted Little Uncle and Rachel’s Ginger Beer as examples of Capitol Hill businesses that got their start at the market.

The market regularly records foot-traffic, doing shopper counts every thirty minutes. Capitol Hill Farmer’s Market sees about 3,000 people each Sunday this time of year.

Pending development of the light rail station plaza, the market will find its new permanent home there amongst the new apartment and retail developments. Litwak expressed her enthusiasm for the future of the market “It will allow the market to grow in tremendous ways, with that foot-traffic from the light rail, and we’re all excited for that change,” she said.

The Capitol Hill Neighborhood Farmers Market runs year-round every Sunday from 11 AM to 3 PM in front of Seattle Central College. You can learn more at seattlefarmersmarkets.org/markets/broadway.

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