Craig Howard is busy building Howard’s Organic Fare and Vegetable Patch

The former office in the century-old City Ice Co. Building is a raw space. It has bare brick walls, exposed ducts and a garage door that looks out on Campbell Street. But Craig Howard, standing on the plywood floor that he laid last week and sipping tea made in a nearby electric kettle, sees the potential for a very different kind of farmers market here at 900 East 21st Street, in a corner of the building that houses the City Arts Project.

“This shouldn’t be a drive-through area,” Howard says. “To me, a market is kind of a regular thing that should be part of a neighborhood. And being so close to downtown, people here need a market.”