The Lebanon Farmers Market building has been sold to Richland-based Dunamis Holdings LLC.
A deed signed on March 29 and recorded at the Lebanon County Recorder’s office shows a sale price of $1.675 million.
The 130-year-old landmark at 31-35 S. 8th St. has been owned by Morrissey Holdings LP since 2016, when it paid $1.3 million.
The market is open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and currently lists 15 vendors on its website.
Morrissey Holdings sent tenants a written notice of the sale on March 29. As part of the agreement, Dunamis will honor existing leases.
Tom Morrissey, owner of Morrissey Holdings, told LebTown that his goal in looking for a buyer was to keep ownership local, with the hope that market operations would see minimal changes.
Morrissey noted that he’d been approached by out-of-town investors over the years whose “only concern seemed to be the bottom line.” He said, “I wanted to make sure it was somebody local who is committed to making it work.”
He and his company own multiple downtown properties, and he said that the market sale doesn’t signal a change. “We’re still invested in downtown and will continue to be,” Morrissey said.
Jason Schwalm, who along with his brother-in-law and father-in-law, Dan and Mark Landis, owns Dunamis, said the family business has no plans to make major changes in the market’s operation, other than to seek more vendors.
“I think the market has a lot of potential,” he said. “There’s a good core group of vendors. If we focus, we can do even better. That’s our ultimate goal. There’s a lot of potential downtown.”
Schwalm said he and his partners plan to meet with all vendors as soon as possible to make their plans clear and answer any questions.
Dunamis also owns the Factory on Main in Myerstown, a former shirt factory it has converted to a market and retail shops.
“Dunamis” is a Greek word that loosely translates to “strength, power, or ability.” It is the root word of the English words dynamite, dynamo, and dynamic, and appears often in the New Testament.
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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect digit in the street address for the market. We sincerely regret the error.