User:Columbiamarketmaster/Columbia Market House

The Columbia Market House holds a Farmer's Market each Thursday from 9am to 7 pm and Friday from 9am to 6pm. There are great market stands including fresh fruits, vegetables, coffee, smoothies, hot foods, home baked goods, candy, breads, pretzels, and so much more! Feel free to come grab lunch or purchase something for dinner!

Throughout the year, there are various weekend shows and other events held inside the Market House. Keep your eyes on this website to see what's happening.

The design of the Columbia Market House, constructed in 1869, is attributed to Isaac Hobbs and Samuel Sloan, with Michael Liphart as the builder. Hobbs began his architectural career with public buildings, including two Philadelphia schools (1866 and 1867), and the Dollar Savings Bank in Pittsburgh (1870). The Columbia Market House was an early, public commission for Hobbs. In 1873, he published Hobbs' Architecture and launched his later career in designing private residences outside of large urban centers. For Sloan, the Columbia Market House commission came during a declining year of a prolific architectural practice. Sloan's early career in the 1850's was marked by institutional work designing hospitals, schools, and churches. He also published multiple volumes on architecture, which went into several editions. Following on the upheaval of the financial panic of 1857-1858 and the Civil War, Sloan sought security in partnership with Addison Hutton in 1864. However, this unhappy partnership ended in 1867, when Sloan left briefly for New York. It is unclear how much influence Sloan would have had on the Columbia Market House project during this tumultuous period in his career. It is more probable that Hobbs shouldered most of the work. Both Hobbs and Sloan are perhaps best known for their building patterns, primarily for residences, that were published in books, journals and periodicals.

The Columbia Market House was constructed on the site of an earlier open air market and takes the form of a long, enclosed shed structure. The large interior open space was spanned with arched, Howe trusses, a cross-braced wood truss reinforced with iron tension rods that was popular for railroad bridges. The design mimics the open market sheds that were in use in the first half of the nineteenth century, while incorporating the same construction technique used in train sheds.

Construction of the Columbia Market House was funded by the municipality, an anomaly in Pennsylvania during 1850-1890, when many of the newer market buildings were being constructed by private corporations. However, the Columbia Market House did follow the trend to tear down open air markets and construct off-street market houses. The Broad Street Market House in Harrisburg (1856-1869) was also constructed as a long, narrow shed structure with central clerestory windows set in a roof monitor. The Ridge Avenue Farmers Market in Philadelphia (1875) was another shed-type market building embellished with gothic details. However, later market buildings tended to be designed more as a building in their own right with enhanced facilities. While retaining the open market house interior, later market buildings exhibited architectural detailing and clearly defined entrances for service providers and the public. Examples of the later type of market buildings include the York Central Market (1888), the Lancaster Southern Market (1888), and the Lancaster Central Market (1889).

In the late nineteenth century, the basement of the Columbia Market House was altered to accommodate seven municipal jail cells. The Columbia Market House was active from 1869 until market activities gradually declined during the last quarter of the twentieth century. The building was cleaned by sandblasting in 1965-68, permanently damaging the exterior brick. The Borough of Columbia financed some exterior maintenance work in the 1980s, including re-pointing the building, replacing exterior doors, repairing the roof, and painting exterior wood trim. By the 1990s, the market could no longer support itself.

COLUMBIA BOROUGH GRANTS FOR MARKET HOUSE $500,000 DCED Market House Grant $257,077 Urban Enhancement Grant

Columbia Market House Construction was publicly bid and awarded to McCoy Contractors in August 2009. A preconstruction meeting was held and work began the week of October 11, 2009 with a 120 day completion guideline.

The proposed work schedule began with a "top-down" approach making repairs and replacing the roof; interior ceiling repairs; working on fascia, cornices, clear story, spouting and brick pointing.

Contractor crews and borough crews will proceed to install drainage devices to accomodate storm water runoff from the building and surrounding roadways.

A grand re-opening will be scheduled sometime in April 2010.