Last November, shoppers at the Downtown Winter Market bought bread and squash under a Convair C-131 Samaritan. A MiG hung overhead too. Both planes were left over from the aviation exhibit at The Leonardo. KSL watched one customer hit their face on the C-131's propeller within minutes of the market's first day there, and the propellers were removed for later markets.
When the market comes back to 209 E. 500 South on Saturday, Nov. 14, the planes are on their way out. Salt Lake City has already scrapped the C-131, and work to demolish the MiG was nearly finished in late October. That cleared ceiling is one of three changes landing downtown within about 24 hours. Pioneer Park reopens the day before, finished after eight months behind fencing. The building the market rents is also lined up for a remodel into city offices. The summer market and the winter market have shared one neighborhood story for years, and now they're splitting into two. The park comes back as a place to use on a Tuesday, and the market spends the winter as a guest in a building that's changing around it.
Friday at noon, Pioneer Park reopens as a weekday park
The grand reopening is Friday, Nov. 13, from noon to 2 p.m., and it's open to the public. Construction began in March. By early October, KSL reported the work was 80% to 90% done, with crews laying sod and planting garden beds.
Here's what's inside the fence line now:
- Six pickleball courts and a basketball court
- A new playground and an improved off-leash dog area
- A covered pavilion, plus space for eight food trucks
- A building with restrooms and a ranger office, home base for three rangers
- A promenade and a mist fountain plaza
- "Common Roots," a series of archways by artists James Shen and Jennifer Tran inspired by tree root systems. It's the park's first permanent public art commissioned through the Salt Lake City Arts Council
KSL reports that crews are also planting 150 trees.
Most of that list is built for a weekday. The south end of the park stayed open all season for the Saturday farmers market, so market regulars have seen the park every weekend. What they haven't seen is the north half, which was closed through construction. Nancy Monteith, a senior landscape architect with Salt Lake City Public Lands, told KSL what the city is after:
"I'm optimistic that people are really going to find this to be a new place to spend time during the week."
The timing matters here. The park finishes right as the farmers market season there ends. So for the next five months, nothing about the reopened Pioneer Park depends on a Saturday crowd. Courts, dogs, rangers and a playground will have to carry it.
Saturday at 10, the market heads east to Library Square
The winter market opens Nov. 14 and runs every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through April 17, 2027, inside the former Leonardo at 209 E. 500 South, according to KSL. The market's own getting-here page still shows Nov. 15 through April 18, the same dates as last season's run, so check it again before your first trip. That's the same building as last winter, and that wasn't a sure thing a year ago.
The market landed there almost by accident. Its earlier winter home at The Gateway became unavailable before the 2025-26 season, and Rio Grande Depot was tied up in a long-term renovation. KSL reported that The Leonardo was open only because the museum had closed. The market moved in days after the museum's lease was formally ended in November 2025. At the time, organizers said the old museum might serve as a temporary winter home until a permanent facility could be built at Pioneer Park. KSL noted that facility still needed approvals and an estimated $20 million to $25 million.
The planes are being scrapped because nobody would pay to move them. The city held an open house for potential buyers earlier this year, and no one came. Both aircraft then sat for months on the state's online auction site. According to KSL's Oct. 23 report, the few bids that came in didn't cover removal costs. Demolition of the C-131 started Sept. 26, and work on the MiG began in October. The city's Public Services Department said project teams decided the aircraft should be removed "to maximize programming space."
That phrase, programming space, points to what comes next for the building.
The building around the market is becoming City Hall East
At her State of the City address, Mayor Erin Mendenhall laid out a reuse plan for the former Leonardo. She spoke from inside the building. The plan puts youth and family programming on the first floor, keeps Ken Sanders Rare Books there, and puts city staff offices upstairs. Building Salt Lake reported that she called the building "City Hall East." It's part of a Civic Center idea that would connect Library Square with Washington Square across 200 East.
That plan now has a permit behind it. The city filed a commercial building permit application on Sept. 23. It covers renovation of the three above-grade floors, with Youth Services staff and programming on floors one and two and staff from several divisions on floor three. A spokesman for the mayor's office told Building Salt Lake that the filing covers the third-floor remodel. That floor will hold offices for Sustainability, Public Lands, and Planning and Design, along with Architecture and Construction Management teams.
The numbers show how much of the building is involved. The remodel covers about 30,000 square feet of a roughly 110,000-square-foot building, and the job is valued at around $2.8 million. The city told Building Salt Lake it hopes to start construction in November and move employees in by April.
Put that schedule next to the market's. If the city's hopes hold, the winter market opens in November alongside the start of the office remodel. Its season would end in mid-April, right as city staff move in upstairs. A shopper buying apples on a Saturday in February would be standing under an active city project, not an abandoned museum. The permit and the spokesman's comments describe a remodel focused on the upper floors. Neither says how construction days will line up with market Saturdays.
How a winter Saturday at 209 E. 500 South works
The market's getting-here page and programs page list the practical details:
- Parking. Get up to two hours of free underground parking by validating at the public library next door. Street parking is $3.50 an hour, with a four-hour limit on Saturdays.
- Transit. The site lists nearby TRAX, bus and bike access.
- SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks. Both work at the winter market. Double Up matches SNAP 2:1, up to $20 per market day.
- What's for sale. The vendor directory includes farmers and growers, meat, produce, baked goods, hot food, packaged food, crafts, art and jewelry.
The 2025-26 season was advertised with more than 70 local vendors. That gives a sense of scale, but it isn't a count for this winter.
The same weekend fills the Conference Center twice
The market and the park reopening aren't the only things downtown that weekend. "Luz de las Naciones," a Latin American celebration hosted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, runs at the Conference Center on Friday, Nov. 13, and Saturday, Nov. 14, at 8 p.m. The performances are free, and tickets opened Oct. 13. The Conference Center is otherwise closed for renovations until March 2027. It opens for major scheduled events like this one, and the parking underneath stays open at $25, with validation available in buildings across Temple Square, per Church News.
So Friday has a midday reopening on the west side of downtown and an evening event a few blocks north. Saturday has a morning market on the east side and the same evening event again. Each is a few blocks from the others, and all three draw downtown traffic within 32 hours.
What next summer can and can't promise
The park now has a covered pavilion and room for eight food trucks, both useful for events of different sizes. The market's own nonprofit booth page expects that program to reopen in summer 2027. That's the only part of next summer's market with a stated plan in writing. Separately, in May 2025 the city and the Downtown Alliance announced a feasibility-stage proposal for a new public building at Pioneer Park. It could house Downtown Ambassadors, a year-round market, events and restrooms. That proposal is a different project from the park renovation finishing on Nov. 13. It's also a different project from the office remodel heading for the old Leonardo.
So for now, the winter market's address is 209 E. 500 South, Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Nov. 14 through April 17, 2027.
A park with its own ranger office and a former museum turning into city offices both change how the blocks around Pioneer Park and Library Square get used. That's the kind of local detail Swett Equity Real Estate tracks for clients across Salt Lake City. If you want to talk through what changes around Pioneer Park and Library Square could mean for your own plans, Let's Connect.
