CLEVELAND — Frustration is growing from some vendors within the West Side Market.
They’re reporting repeated issues with power outages and surges — directly impacting their businesses and products.
They’re now calling on market management for a permanent fix and are pleading for a different energy provider.
Wednesday morning, the West Side Market reopened as regularly scheduled.
However, some vendors—like Jason Scott, who owns Greg's Produce, say they haven't had power — in Scott's case, for at least four days, he says.
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Patrick Evans, the director of marketing for the market, responded to our report, saying, "Neither the Market nor the vendor in question has been fully out of power for 4 days. There are a couple of booths that have stand lights that are out. We are working currently to resolve those issues, but all stands have necessary power to operate their businesses."
But vendors say there are persistent problems, especially when it comes to their power and electric supply.
In the meantime, management from the non-profit Cleveland Public Market Corporation says they are committed to figuring out how to reduce the number of outages and improve the overall vendor dynamic.
A power outage on Memorial Day prompted West Side Market vendors like Don Whitaker from D.W. Whitaker Meats to speak out to News 5.
Whitaker says they are dealing with a lot of stress and, at times, lost product and wages.
He says when the power returns—it comes on too heavy and typically blows out their food cases.
Whitaker, who is the President of the United West Side Market's Tenant Association, says the new management team is working very hard and he appreciates their efforts.
Change is welcome.
Whitaker says everyone, unfortunately, has been left with a building that’s in a state of disrepair after they took it over from the city.
”They've just been kind of thrown into the fire here and then we're dealing with Cleveland Public Power, which obviously, you know, that's owned and run by the City of Cleveland and there are some issues, the amount of outages that happened to Cleveland Public Power as compared to the Illuminating Company," Whitaker said.
West Side Market management confirms the three-hour-long power outage that occurred Monday was area-wide and due to wind.
It was not just isolated to the West Side Market.
Since the switch in management, there have been two outages so far.
Vendors say there have been five outages over the last year.
On Tuesday, the West Side Market sent us this statement.
Since CPMC has assumed management, there have been two large scale power outages affecting the near west side from West 45th Street to the Flats and Tremont, including West Side Market. On both occasions, CPMC communicated with Cleveland Public Power to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, as well as maintained communication with Market merchants so that they could adequately respond to the outage.
CPMC’s goal in situations where the Market loses power is to be in constant contact with Cleveland Public Power until resolution and to provide updates to our merchants so that they can take the best actions for their businesses.
In calendar year 2024 the Market has lost power a total of 5 times, 3 of these times the outage lasted less than 2 hours.
"They came in on the last two. They understand we need a generator. They're working on getting solutions to that. They've inherited this building that's needed repairs for 40 years. So, I would you say that there might be a little bit of a learning curve," Whitaker said.
Tenants say the larger issue is within Cleveland Public Power, and they say they would like the West Side Market to switch to FirstEnergy Illuminating Company as the market’s energy provider.
Cleveland Public Market management says they can’t comment on that relationship.
But they’re taking measures to safeguard vendors and products—as well as working on capital improvements.
“As the managers of the market, we're committed to figuring out how we can work with CPP or whoever to reduce the number of outages, if possible. We're having some additional conversations with CPP because it has happened so often this year and trying to work through why, you know, why is our particular area being affected more often than usual or more often than, you know, maybe others and seeing if there's, you know, alternatives to, to reduce the number of outages," said Rosemary Mudry, Cleveland Public Market Corporation Executive Director.
They’re now in the process of putting surge protection to the cooling system and working with CPP to prevent more future issues.
The surging is the latest problem.
Murdy is aware.
“We're in the process of putting in surge protection to the cooling system so that should not be a problem in the future, and we're going to continue to work with CPP to understand why that has happened and hopefully they, they can also work on it on their end as well," Murdy said.
Murdy says it is their goal to continue to communicate with the vendors and create the best partnership imaginable.
A $44 million master plan for upgrades is currently being put into action.
Cleveland Public Power issued the following statement regarding the outage:
"On Monday afternoon, Cleveland Public Power responded to an outage resulting from high winds and a downed wire that effected approximately 500 customers from 2:47 p.m. to 5:24 p.m. Within a few hours CPP completed repairs and power was restored. Outages beyond this timeframe are due to internal onsite electric issues and not within CPP’s control. CPP is also actively placing a majority of this circuit underground which will reduce the risk of weather related outages, with completion scheduled in June."
