28-01-2025
Youngstown Flea has plans to grow as it enters 10th season
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – When the first Youngstown Flea of the new year takes place early next month, it will mark the tenth season of what's billed as 'the market for makers.'
Derrick McDowell welcomed First News inside his 150-year-old historic warehouse on the East End of downtown — home of the Youngstown Flea.
'I mean, it's been a lot of work to make sure that this thing has reached this point,' he said.
The first Youngstown Flea was in April 2016 next to the Covelli Centre.
McDowell remembers, at the time, wondering if anyone would show up.
'I ran home, only to try and return to backed-up traffic all the way up South Avenue. I couldn't even get off of 680 to get to my own market,' he said.
McDowell started the Youngstown Flea after seeing similar markets during his travels in places like Brooklyn, Denver, LA and Miami.
The first Flea had 38 vendors. Now there are 100.
'You're trying to build a community, you're trying to build people who understand what you're trying to do while you're trying to understand what they're doing,' McDowell said.
The big change came in 2020 when the Flea moved into the warehouse.
'So we had a home with the City of Youngstown but we found our — what most folks would call — our forever home,' McDowell said.
He has big plans for that home. He wants to build a boardwalk to the Mahoning River, which is a thousand feet out his back door. There are also plans to take a section of the building and partition it, creating permanent spaces similar to Cleveland's West Side Market.
'As we work to get this building in shape, we want to see it humming with human activity on a regular basis, bringing people to the downtown, daytime traffic, night markets that are bringing folks here,' McDowell said.
The first Youngstown Flea of 2025 will be Saturday, February 8 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Then there's at least one Flea every month through December. The Mother's Day Flea is at Fellows Riverside Gardens and the Father's Day Flea is at the Wick Recreational area.
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