Welcome to La Placita Farmers Market at the Rock Island Bridge!

​

What is La Placita?

​

La Placita is a Saturday Market at the Rock Island Bridge. It features vendors, entertainment, and the opportunity for members of the community to connect.

The market is 100% secured and promoted by CABA with the extraordinary help of the Unified Government’s Parks and Recreation Department. La Placita enjoys the help of many
community volunteers, community-conscious businesses and organizations, the same.

The potential for the extended success of La Placita reaches all Central Area Commercial venues. The project is greatly scalable. In the past 10 years, we have experienced the energy generated during each event, and we know this energy has inspired even greater grassroots participation. 60% of Wyandotte County mobile vending came from our program. Investment Champions that have been able to continue their investment, moving into a food truck or even a brick and
mortar.

Older folks, single-parent families, single mothers, and abused, neglected members of our community are searching for direction, knowledge, experience, and opportunity. We believe the low-income/hard-working people of our community need a place to expose themselves to non-threatening, low-cost investment, business opportunities surrounded by friends and family, with a chance to explore commerce and meet new people.

The highs and lows of working life make it difficult to enjoy recreational times. The success of our program comes from marrying the need to generate income with the opportunity to enjoy time with family and friends. With everyone’s help in making the Market/Business Incubator a success, we bring our community together.

CABA is responsible for the venues’ cost and covers it by sharing the net cost with the participating vendors, making sure they enjoy as much of their profits as possible. CABA enjoys
seeing the vendors become financially independent. We are simply too enthusiastic a community to allow the opportunity to change things in a positive direction to slip away, so we created La Placita Market and gave it the strength of a Grassroots Business Incubator to help our community help itself!

​

Mission

La Placita shall be an open-door venue for community members to explore their ability to produce and commercialize any given product without the pressure of major up-front investment.

​

​

Vision
Within La Placita's operation, each vending start-up shall be guided and prompted to engage in learning the commercialization of products and services. Product presentation, market analysis, and forward planning are embedded in the process of learning how to build a path to financial success.

 

Project’s History
It all began when graduate students from the KU School of Architecture conducted a survey with residents of the Central Area (Central Avenue) of Kansas City, Kansas, during the annual
Central Avenue Parade in 2013. Members of the community were asked what they liked and did not like about Kansas City/East Wyandotte. Unsurprisingly, home and church were some of the most liked areas. However, what came as a shocking surprise was that Bethany Park earned the sad title of “the least liked” place in Kansas City!

Instead of ignoring the negative results of the survey, CABA embraced the opportunity for positive change.

In 2014, CABA developed a Grass Roots Market to enhance challenged spaces like Bethany Park, as the community thought it was time for something to be done to change its image. It was CABA’s desire to change the park into a place that inspired the community and served as a positive location once again.
During the same year, CABA hosted 6 events where more than 25 vendors participated. Each vendor benefited financially, but the community benefited much more by rescuing the Park for
its members.

After 12 years of delivery, we are producing a market every Saturday from 8 am to 1 pm in partnership with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County, Kansas City, Kansas, and the
Rock Island Bridge.

There is no denying the fact that the Rock Island Bridge and the newly redeveloped River Levee Trail are at the “heart” of the Central Area Commercial development, thus our 2026 program. The venue is very well located.

​

​

Business Incubator Model
La Placita is CABA’s Grassroots Business Incubator, designed to invigorate, revitalize, and rebrand the Central Area’s Commercial Corridors by empowering underserved residents to test their
business dreams in a real-time market, giving them the opportunity to learn the intricacies of administering a business while minimizing their upfront investment.

Our final goal is to help them generate well-being for themselves and perhaps open a front door in our community.

 

Highlighting the under-utilized River Levee Trail in the popular Rock Island Bridge area, the program’s goal has been to create a positive economic impact that benefits everyone in our community: the Business District, the neighborhoods, residents, potential businesses, corporations, Wyandotte County, Kansas City, Kansas, and you.

Thanks to the community’s help and support, Central Avenue Betterment Association is willing and has been able to sponsor as many as 10 Micro Start-Ups each session. Our sponsorship
program includes an umbrella structure for:

• La Placita Market Permits and Insurance.
• La Placita Vendors Food Handlers Training.
• La Placita Market Branding and Advertising Strategies.
• La Placita Market Community Promotion.
• La Placita Vending Tents and Amenities.
• La Placita Market Music and Entertainment.
• La Placita Business Administration Booth Camp. (on-going off-season) In partnership with The ToolBox, Small Business Resource Center.

                 o Vendor's Business Plan.
                 o Vendors Marketing Plan.
                 o Vendors Catering Plan.
                 o Vendors Mobil Service Structure Financing (by                          external fundraising) 

CABA pledges to help and support in making sure our production is a sign of excellence and continues with its programming. We ask you to volunteer in its production and donate funds for our program to continue giving.

​

​

​