Inspired by all the Tennessee flea market news that broke today, here’s an update on a news story of market mayhem in Memphis. Back in May, the Memphis Big One Flea Market was pushed out of its home in the Mid-South Fairgrounds and relocated to a site called the Agricenter International. But a flea market that was already located there, the Shelby Farms Flea Market, ended up evicted due to an oral lease agreement and a noncompete clause in the Big One’s deal with the city. Now all that’s left of the Shelby Farms Flea Market is its Web site.
According to former Shelby Farms market manager Brian Ellsworth, contacted today, “If we find a location, we’ll definitely reopen it, because it was going well. But right now nothing is brewing.” His company continues to run fairs and music festivals.
Meanwhile, the Big One is thriving in its new location. According to general manager Sandy Hembree, “We’re doing great. We have between four and five hundred vendors. They’re all under one roof, with a controlled climate for the whole market now.” She says that sales at the year-round market are better than ever. “Our business has really picked up,” she says. “Our vendors say they are in a very good place. We’re attracting a lot more customers than what we were attracting at the fairgrounds.”
And as for the former fairgrounds, it seems that development there has started, per the official Web site — but a newspaper editorial asked last Saturday, “When is the city going to get cracking on redeveloping the rest of the Mid-South Fairgrounds property?”