GLENS FALLS, N.Y. (NEWS10) – After six years and multiple renderings, it’s official. This week, the Glens Falls Planning Board approved the plans for the new farmer’s market and event space set to come to South Street.

The planned space will serve as a new home for the Glens Falls Farmer’s Market, currently located further up South Street next to New Way Lunch. The new space has shifted in budget over the years, due to the supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; and in shape, as architects determine how better to maximize airflow and sunlight while building a structure that can house more than just markets. At the end of the day, the city is excited to move forward.

“This is the – hopefully – culmination of a rather lengthy process that we’ve been working on for some time,” said Glens Falls Economic Development Director Jeff Flagg at the meeting. Flagg came with Scott Miller, from CLA SITE Landscape Architecture, Engineering & Planning, to answer board questions before the vote.

The site and architectural plans for the future market at 51-63 South St. are born from $10 million in Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding awarded to Glens Falls in 2017. The project will not only give the farmer’s market a new home, but will – the city hopes – renew interest and business in the formally-vibrant South Street area, once known locally as the “street of dreams.”

The city’s own dreams were given the OK at the April 4 meeting, within certain requirements. Last month, the planning board resolved to become the lead agency on the project, with notices sent to the Glens Falls Common Council, Zoning Board of Appeals, Industrial Development Agency and Local Development Corporation, as well as the Warren County Planning Agency and the New York State Empire Development Corporation, Department of Parks and Historic Preservation, and Department of State.

Of those, every group has responded stating no objection to the plan, except for the Department of State – which had two days left to respond as of the meeting. The plans have been approved under the condition of OK from that final agency.

The list of questions for Miller was short. The planned market center will include a wide expanse of flat, smooth concrete for pedestrian and event use, which planning board Chairman Ethan Hall suggested might be attractive to skateboarders.

“The exterior (street side) we’re not concerned because it’s going to be a planting bed, and it’s too close to the fence,” Miller explained. “On the inside, we could add some devices that will hinder skateboarders from coming up there and using it as a ramp.”

The current home of the Glens Falls Farmer’s Market has been eyed as the future site of a mixed-use building for apartments and businesses. That plan has yet to be formally presented for approval and has kicked up concerns from South Street area residents at a meeting last month. Meanwhile, businesses have opened along the street in recent months, hoping to see new traffic come along – and be part of the next chapter of the “Street of Dreams.”