Fence around Fayetteville Market House to remain until next month, city says
A fence around Fayetteville's Market House will remain up until at least next month, The Fayetteville Observer reports.
On Monday, the Fayetteville City Council unanimously approved final repairs to the building, including putting up a scaffold, replacing a window, exterior window painting and re-staining the floors on the inside. City Manager Doug Hewett said the repairs are expected to begin as early as next week.
Mayor Mitch Colvin Colvin said he gets frequent emails about the fence, which currently sits around the base of the building. Hewett said the decision about taking down the fence can be made once repairs are completed and council makes a decision about the Market House's repurposing or movement.
The Market House has been a topic of conversation at council meetings over the past several months.
The council considered a motion in January to tear down the Market House, but it failed by an 8-2 vote. All of council agreed the building shouldn't remain as is.
Some council members want to turn the Market House, where enslaved people were once bought and sold, into a Black history museum, but Hewett said the building doesn't meet requirements listed in the Americans with Disabilities Act. It has no elevator and only one bathroom, which is located on the second floor.
A Black Lives Matter mural originally painted around the Market House last summer after the killing of George Floyd was removed in early January just days after the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Colvin admitted the city made a mistake removing those words just before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and the start of Black History Month in February, and the mural was repainted.
