Sustainable Glasgow is looking for a permanent home for the Bounty of the Barrens farmers market the group oversees.

Recently, a feasibility study Sustainable Glasgow commissioned indicated the group’s plan to build a permanent pavilion with restroom facilities in a public parking lot on the west side of the Glasgow Square is workable.

Brandi Button, acting executive director of Sustainable Glasgow, said the farmers market is located on the lawn in front of the Barren County Courthouse from the last week of April to the first week in October and in the Barren County Extension Office during the rest of the year, when the weather is colder.

The lack of a permanent home is a deterrent for potential customers, she said.

“It shrinks our customer base because when we move away from the extension office, they assume we closed down,” she said.

When the city hosts an event that coincides with Bounty of the Barrens, the farmers market must often relocate to the public parking lot on the square, which has caused some people unaware of the market’s backup location to not know the market was happening only a few hundred footsteps away from the courthouse.

“If we had a permanent home, our vendors could establish more of a permanent base,” she said.

Last October, the Glasgow City Council granted a request from Sustainable Glasgow to commission a feasibility study to determine whether building a pavilion in the parking lot was possible.

Button said Sustainable Glasgow paid for the study with a $30,000 rural business development grant from the Department of Agriculture.

According to a release from Sustainable Glasgow, the design, which RBG Design Group, the firm conducting the study, drew up, the facility would be “weather-proof” and equipped with storage space and public restrooms.

“If we have a permanent location, it would be nice to have one on the square or at least near the square,” she said.

On Monday, Button appeared at a Glasgow City Council meeting to ask for the council’s blessing for Sustainable Glasgow to start attempting to raise the $600,000 that would be needed to build the structure.

The council gave its approval, with council member Jake Dickinson casting the sole no vote.

Dickinson said in a phone interview that he thinks there are other places where Sustainable Glasgow could host the farmers market.

“I don’t think all the options have been explored,” he said.

Dickinson said he thinks a place on the ground floor of the parking structure downtown, which is also less than a block away from the courthouse, would be a better spot.

“I just don’t think it’s necessary to take all those parking spaces when we have a space already available,” he said. “If I was a merchant on the square, I wouldn’t want those spots being taken away.”

Button said she had never considered hosting the farmers market there before.

“If we had a permanent location, it would be nice to have one on the square or at least near the square,” she said.

Mayor Dick Doty said building a pavilion in the parking lot Sustainable Glasgow is eyeing would not disrupt its ability to provide public parking Sunday through Friday, when the farmers market isn’t being held.

Doty said the information Button presented to the council indicated the lot could include the structure, which cars would be able to park under, and still hold the cars of everyone who wants to use the lot at any given time.

While the pavilion, if constructed, would mean the loss of roughly a dozen parking spots, the spots that would remain would be enough.

“This initial design still allows for that number of spaces,” he said. “Currently, you’re not using it all as it is.”

Doty also said he thinks the pavilion would improve the parking lot because it would allow people to park their cars in the shade.

“The downtown regulars would have an enhanced parking place,” he said.