CHICAGO — In the 30-year-long discussion to move Chicago’s wholesale produce business from the South Water Street Market to the current Chicago International Produce Market, one design compromise reached was to keep the feel of the modern market, according to Steve Serck, who is the treasurer on the market’s board of directors. “When we moved here in 2002, people wanted to keep the market feel,” he said. Over time, as food safety and the cold chain grew as industry considerations, “we realized it was better to close the front.”

When the market opened a dozen years ago, the market’s back side was cold chain controlled for receiving produce. Customers loading on the front dock had a high overhang, but it wasn’t enclosed.

This spring the Chicago International Market will be completing the addition of rolling doors — similar to large garage doors — to help protect the display dock.

Work to install doors on the front dock of the Chicago International Produce Market neared completion in mid-April. The doors are not insulated to control the cold chain, but they will block blowing blizzards and the cold wind. The doors may have some influence in dock temperatures, Serck said, but they will certainly cut “the wind and wind chill and snow on the dock.”

Serck, who is the owner of JAB Produce Inc., said the doors are the culmination of years of discussion on the market.

The winter two years ago “was so horrible, that was the final straw” in driving the decision to invest in the doors, he said.

Jose (Pepe) Vega, a buyer and family owner for La Galera Produce, believes “the new doors will be great. I think it will be a lot better” as the doors deflect cold and summertime heat.

The doors each have new dock plates and will only be open as customers load their trucks, Vega added. The doors will also allow more walkway displays, which essentially adds space and protects from blowing dust. He noted the doors will be especially helpful in the winter because cold air blows off the Chicago River, which runs past a front corner of the market.  

“The customers and employees will fare better” with the doors, “and the product will fare much better,” Vega noted.

Robert (Rob) Strube III, the president of Strube Celery & Vegetable Co., said that hopefully the improvements “will help in the winter to cut the wind and snow. The doors are not sealed like they are in the back. Going up and down the street will be easier. There are no heaters behind the new doors, but when it is minus 20 degrees, the snow at least will not be blowing across the dock.”

Strube, whose uncle Tim Fleming Sr. was instrumental in creating this new market, said the new design was never planned to have doors on the front side.

“They wanted it as close to the old market as they could get at that point,” Strube said.

Two really bad winters in a row caused a change in heart and the eventual vote to close the front side of the market.

Strube said the doors are primarily to reduce wind and rain “to try to keep the dock with a temperature-controlled atmosphere. Things shouldn’t freeze” with the doors closed in the wintertime. But, he added, “we won’t know until the next cold spell” this winter. Either way, “When there are five or 10 inches of snow, it will alleviate some of the dock problems.“

Mark Pappas, president of Coosemans Chicago Inc., said the new doors will make the market “more buyer-friendly” in the winter. Otherwise, in bad weather, “buyers are hesitant to come in. In a controlled environment, they can walk into the units rather than phone in their orders and have us deliver.”

Serck said, “I am excited” about the market’s improvement. “This is something, that, fortunately, is being paid for by capital reserves, so we didn’t have to assess” tenants for the cost. In the five or six years the doors were discussed, their cost dropped by half because of technical improvements.

“This is a work in progress,” Serck added. “We will see if it works the way we want in the winter to keep the heat in.”