Formal market at Corona Plaza takes next step
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The city and the Department of Transportation have begun looking for proposals for third-party operators to manage the legal outdoor market at Corona Plaza. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The city is on the hunt for an organization that can run a first-of-its-kind market in Corona Plaza, around half a year after vendors were forcibly removed from the area by city officials for illegally selling food and goods.
Last week, the city and the Department of Transportation released a Request For Proposal to find a long-term operator to manage the new formal market at Corona Plaza. The market, which opened in December, was the result of negotiations between the city, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and vendor groups after the city kicked vendors from the plaza seemingly without warning last summer.
The city is now looking for an operator to manage the 14 total vendors – 10 of which will sell food – at the 15,000-square-foot plaza in the heart of Corona and just below the 7 train.
According to the city, the third-party operator “will address safety, sanitation, and quality-of-life conditions, while city agencies will monitor and take enforcement action as necessary to keep Corona Plaza safe and clean.”
"When we came into office, we had a clear vision: protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make this city more livable for working-class New Yorkers,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “Our long-term vision for Corona Plaza delivers on all fronts and is a vision that works for all of us — for vendors, for pedestrians, for neighbors, and for our city.”
"We're off to a good start: The interim plan we implemented late last year set us up for success by addressing the key safety, sanitation, and quality of life concerns while ensuring that vending in the plaza could continue,” the mayor added. “The RFP we're issuing today will lock that success in for the long run, securing Corona Plaza's future as a vibrant community and cultural hub for decades to come."
Despite the administration’s positive outlook toward the future of the plaza, Adams was heavily criticized for his role in disrupting the former iteration of the market, which was regarded as a culinary and cultural hub in Western Queens.
Negotiations on how to best work out the new formal, legal market lasted weeks, and even led to Queens Borough President Donovan Richards holding his approval of the massive Willets Point development as a bargaining chip to get vendors back in the plaza.
“Sometimes you got to use your leverage,” Richards told the Eagle in November.
With a deal now reached and a search for an operator underway, Richards is celebrating the next phase for Corona Plaza.
Although happy to be a formal market, vendors at Corona Plaza are waiting for the weather to improve business. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
“Corona Plaza embodies the Queens spirit in so many ways, from our borough’s unmatched diversity to our unrivaled work ethic,” said Richards. “Affirming the plaza’s status as a hub of culture and cuisine and empowering the vendors who sell their goods there — many of whom are immigrant women — has been a top priority of my office’s Corona Plaza Task Force for well over a year, and the issuance of an RFP is the most important victory yet in that critical effort.”
Richards also specifically recognized Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi for her help in getting the deal through to the finish line, as well as other groups.
“Officially beginning this search for a long-term operator brings us one step closer to ensuring our street vendors and community members get to enjoy Corona Plaza in all its glory, and I look forward to continuing to work with our city and community partners to make this a reality,” he said.
While the city looks for a permanent operator, the market has thus far been operated by the Queens Economic Development Corporation and Executive Director Seth Bornstein, who told the Eagle that they also intend to apply to operate the market going forward.
“We feel the work we've done in the last six months demonstrates our ability to do this,” Bornstein said.
However, undertaking the job of formalizing what, for years, operated outside the framework of city law was not without its difficulties.
“It's been a curve for everybody because until July it was a free for all over there,” Bornstein said. “We had to really work with the city to put things in order.”
On Friday at the plaza, there were five food vendors and a handful of clothing sellers, all still settling into the more formal procedures, and managing businesses under legal compliance.
Currently at Corona Plaza, there are a handful of vendors selling clothes, food and jewelry under the management of the Queens Economic Development Corporation. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
All vendors taking part in the legal market were situated under blue tents, and were under the eye of QEDC managers, like Don Edwin Lucero.
Lucero said that piloting the new market in the winter has worked well – the slower foot traffic means the market won’t get overwhelmed.
But it also makes it difficult to truly assess how successful the new iteration of the market will be.
“I think that opening the winter was a good time to open so that way we can gauge what works, what doesn't work,” Lucero told the Eagle at Corona Plaza on Friday. “The food vendors are learning, mastering along the way on how to not only be code compliant, but also become experts and have more of a business presentation.”
Lucero said that the vendors are adapting, and no longer need to operate in “survival mode” or under the fear of enforcement from the NYPD or Department of Sanitation.
“I like it, everything is running perfect,” said Norma Manzanares, a Mexican vendor who sells chilaquiles and soup. “We don’t have any problems.”
Gaston Cortez, who was vending with Manzanares and helping to serve chilaquiles amid the cold weather, said there is more that still needs to be ironed out.
Norma Manzanares serves shrimp soup out of her stall, and has been vending at Corona Plaza for a year. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
“It's not better, but it's not worse,” he said of the new legal market, criticizing its limited hours. “Hopefully, we get a little more hours to keep going, and it will be perfect.”
Cortez said that the vendors are hoping to keep the plaza clean as possible – they shoveled snow out of the area during last week’s winter storm – while waiting for the hotter months to bring more business and opportunities.
“The weather is definitely not helping, this has been very rough,” he said. “But we're waiting, it's only a couple more months to see.”
Although Bornstein hopes QEDC gets the job, he knows it will be a heavy responsibility for whoever gets it.
“They have to work their butts off and get the right people at the plaza,” he said. “We have great plaza managers. It's personnel who really understand what it's like to be a vendor, and they've got to work really hard to understand all the rules and all the personalities involved in managing agencies working at that plaza.”
“My advice to anybody – it's a lot of work, it's very frustrating at times,” he added. “But in the end, if you do it properly, I think it's a good result for the vendors and the public.”
Proposals to manage Corona Plaza are due to the city by March 18 at 2 p.m.
