After being met with opposition last summer about building a larger farmers market structure at the Village Green, islanders spearheading the effort to provide the market with a year-round shelter are exploring other options.

For years, local farmers and producers have been calling for an alternative to moving the market indoors during the off-season. Business drops with the move, they say, and a shelter that could be closed off to keep out the rain and the cold would allow the market to continue through fall and winter. And a new structure would do more than benefit the market, members of Vashon Island Growers Association’s (VIGA) Reimagine the Market committee say. The Village Green has become something of a hangout for transients and is not occupied or used by the community unless the market is there.

But when designs for larger buildings that could be built on the Green were unveiled to the community last August, islanders opposed the idea.

“We got fabulous feedback,” Celina Yarkin, an island farmer leading the effort to find a permanent home for the market, said last week. “They want the park as a park and don’t want to lose the grass to a permanent structure.”

The plans, both created by island builders, illustrated large shelters that could accommodate Vashon’s growing number of vendors year-round. They included rolling doors — like garage doors — that could be opened in the summer and closed in the winter to keep rain and wind out, but let light in; a clock tower that would serve as an icon for the market and spaces for a commercial kitchen and events, such as weddings, parties and meetings.

Yarkin said that from the feedback gathered last summer, islanders seemed to be supportive of a simple, timber-framed structure that could have rolling doors on the sides, but not much more beyond that. But if the market continues to grow at its current rate — Market Manager Caleb Johns said the market’s sales are up 15 percent from last year— it will need a larger, permanent space, Johns said.

The committee is now turning its focus to areas beyond the Village Green and exploring “near-town options,” Yarkin said.

“We want to get the community thinking creatively about where the market could go,” she said. “It would be great to find another space, but we don’t want to ruin a good thing. We’re not going to move without a wildly good option.”

She said the committee is merely exploring options at this point.

“That takes time and conversations,” she said.

The market has occupied multiple locations during the fall, from the current Granny’s building before Granny’s was there, to the space next to Thriftway in the shopping center. Both locations are now occupied by businesses, and last year, the market ended six weeks early because of this lack of space. But, a new partnership could make the market’s historically difficult off-season easier this year. Johns recently accepted a position at Vashon Center for the Arts, in addition to his market manager role, and the market will be moving to the Kay White Hall in October.

“With closer proximity comes the opportunity to share visions and dreams, and we realized there was a great chance for a win-win situation here,” he said, explaining that, come Oct. 21, farmers will set up their stands in the breezeway between Vashon Highway and the Kay White Hall. Crafters and musicians will set up in the hall’s lobby. The markets will continue there every Saturday through Dec. 16.

Yarkin said the new location may be a solution to the off-season problem and may also present an opportunity to extend the market into the early spring and winter shoulder seasons.

“Maybe that’s all we need is a good working relationship,” she said.

There are six farmers markets left to be held at the Village Green before it moves to the arts center, and the market will hold its annual Harvest Festival this Saturday to mark the end of the summer season. There will be a healthy eating competition, jam competition and zucchini car racing.