Flea market gets back to business

By HOLLY SCHOENSTEIN

Four Seasons Flea and Farm Market is scheduled to be open for business with potentially fewer vendors.

YOUNGSTOWN — Four Seasons Flea and Farm Market is scheduled to be open for business today, despite a fire that damaged most of the main building on the property last week, said flea market co-owner and manager Dennis Barr.

About 600 vendors are expected to set up stands outdoors under pavilions and in the parking lot at the flea market, which is located at 3000 McCartney Road (U.S. Route 422).

An estimated 200 vendors may be turned away because there’s less space now. Before the fire Thursday, Barr said 180 vendors were indoors and 600 were outdoors.

The number of vendors at Wednesday’s flea market should not be affected, he said, because about 250 usually attend.

Some area businesses have benefited from the rapid growth of Four Seasons over the last two years.

“The last couple of years it has just grown phenomenally,” said Jasmine Pagan, office manager at Save-A-Lot grocery next door to the flea market.

Save-A-Lot store manager Robert Yurko said patronage grows at the grocery store about 10 percent on Sundays, which he attributes to flea market customers.

Campbell resident George Corfias, previous owner of Jay’s Famous Hot Dogs, which is now located at 745 McCartney Road, works at the restaurant almost every day. He said patronage has also increased at the restaurant by an estimated 15 percent on Wednesdays and Sundays because of flea market customers.

As some surrounding businesses profit from the crowds, overflow parking has other business owners concerned. Because vendors are scheduled to set up in the parking lot at Four Seasons, fewer spaces will be available for the 6,000 to 8,000 customers that attend the flea market on Sundays (a figure Barr provided).

David Mastrey, owner of City Limits Restaurant next door to the flea market at 3038 McCartney Road, hopes parking will not be a problem. He said only City Limits customers are permitted to park in his restaurant’s lot.

About 10 percent of City Limits’ customers come from the flea market on Sundays, and about half come from the market on Wednesdays.

Because the flea market will remain open, Mastrey does not expect the incident to affect his restaurant’s business in the future, but said it did Thursday.

“I can’t afford to suffer anymore. They shut down the street at 4:30 p.m. [Thursday],” he said.

As of Friday morning, the Youngstown Fire Department was still investigating the cause of the fire, which Barr said he heard may have been electrical.

Barr plans to rebuild the flea market. “We’re going to be as fast as we can be,” he said.

By Friday morning, he said about 200 vendors had driven to the flea market to inspect the damage.

Barr said the building was insured, but few vendors had their own insurance. He does not expect his policy to cover the entire cost of the damage, and expects to pay at least $400,000 out of pocket.

hschoenstein@vindy.com