Halifax Seaport Market moving to former Cunard Centre this summer

Vendors at the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market will pack up their stalls for another move this summer to make way for incoming cruise ships.

Starting in July, market vendors will be selling their wares out of Pavilion 23, the building formerly known as the Cunard Centre, the port announced last week. This comes just over a year after the market relocated to Pavilion 22 from its original home next door. 

Steven Zubalik owns Lunenburg's Laughing Whale Coffee and operates a stall at the market. He said he's thankful the market will continue to be indoors because an earlier plan to host the market outdoors in the summer months would have been "a real pain."

"It was kind of a stroke of good fortune that the Cunard Centre came open," Zubalik said.

"It looks like the market can finally stop moving and we have a permanent home for as far out as we can see."

The market's new location was previously operated by Halifax events company, RCR hospitality but it has sat empty since the start of the pandemic.

Cruise ships are returning this year after a two-year hiatus and the move will return Pavilion 22 to its previous purpose as a terminal for disembarking passengers in time for peak season.

But with the first ship scheduled to arrive in April, some stalls will be removed or relocated before the move in July to accommodate disembarking passengers.

Nick Garside, the port's director of real estate, said some vendors could be moved outside as a result.

"The two couldn't really co-exist in there," Garside said. "We don't have a floor plan yet but that's what we're working on."

Garside said the port has hired a designer to help repurpose the old event venue into a space that's suitable for a farmers' market. He said the response from vendors so far has been positive.

"We approached the vendors at the farmers' market just to see if there was any interest in taking a portion of [Pavillion 23] and they were overwhelmingly in favour of moving in there," Garside said.