NewBo Market eyeing $300,000 grant from Solid Waste Agency

NewBo City Market has gotten a warm response from the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency's board, which indicated this month that it will approve a $300,000 grant to the market paid out over three years.

In exchange, the market says it will enter into a joint partnership with the agency to promote the agency's push to divert waste from the landfill through recycling and composting by giving users of the market firsthand exposure to “innovative waste management.”

Sarah Ordover, board president of the market, told the Solid Waste Agency Board that a $300,000 grant from the agency to the market would move the market closer to reaching the $3 million target of its fundraising campaign. The market has raised $2.3 million, Ordover told the board in making the funding request of it this month.

The board will take a formal vote on the request at its meeting in March.

Ordover suggested a market marketing campaign might be titled, “No More Trashmore,” which is the local name for the towering landfill across the river from the site, at Third Street and 12th Avenue SE in New Bohemia, of the coming NewBo City Market.

Ben Rogers, a Linn County supervisor and chairman of the Solid Waste Agency board, said the grant to the market meets the goals of the agency.

Justin Shields, a Cedar Rapids council member and agency board member, called the agency's partnership with the market “a natural fit,” saying that the market will promote all that the agency promotes.

“I can see this place being spotless,” Shields said of the market.

Ordover said the year-round farmers market, which will showcase Iowa products, “needed” to be open in November.