(Image: Punk Rock Flea Market)

What began in an abandoned basement bar beneath the Low Income Housing Institute headquarters in Belltown led to the birth of the Punk Rock Flea Market. This June, PRFM will hold its first weekend sale in the former QFC on 15th Ave E that has been shuttered since 2021 to activate that space until the building is demolished to make way for new housing and new businesses.

“We’re ‘punk rock’ because we’re collaborative and very DIY, not because we adhere to any particular fashion or music choices. We’re open and friendly and weird, and everyone is welcome to buy and sell with us,” Joshua Okrent, PRFM founder, tells CHS.

While the public process and financing pathway for redevelopment can be lengthy and bumpy, the property’s developer Hunters Capital has been searching for short-term tenants to try to keep the block active until the six-story, 170-unit, mixed-use development with about 10,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space can dig in.

“The Punk Rock Flea Market will be here through the end of the year and will continue on a month-to-month basis next year,” Jill Cronauer, chief operating officer of Hunters Capital, told CHS.

The agreement means there will be time for multiple PRFM event over the coming months. The first is planned for June 22nd and 23rd the weekend before the big 2024 Pride festivities.

CHS reported here last month on the plans for the market and the history of the grocery’s closure and planned redevelopment.

PRFM is seeking vendors for its upcoming events. It also needs volunteers to help prepare the new space (Image: Punk Rock Flea Market)

PRFM has a history of putting emptied spaces into motion during the often multi-year path to redeveloping key blocks of the city. In 2017, the crew took over the Central District’s former Red Apple grocery store at 23rd and Jackson when it was being transformed into a mixed-use development that now houses hundreds of apartment units and an Amazon Fresh grocery store. In 2016, PRFM was in Capitol Hill’s former Value Village before it became part of an 11th Ave office development.

“The Punk Rock Flea Market is a collaborative community of artists, vendors and craftspeople who create a unique marketplace on an irregular basis,” Okrent said.

The group works with vendors with a wide variety of offerings — clothes, music, food, arts and crafts, sneakers, skateboards, bondage gear, tattoos, prosthetic limbs, crystals, taxidermy, and graffiti supplies to name a few.

Okrent said their main lease will expire on December 31 and that PRFM isn’t making any plans beyond that.

“If the next nine months go well and the owners are amenable, we’ll extend it for as long as we can,” Okrent said.

Meanwhile, there might be another empty Capitol Hill grocery space to consider.

PRFM’s plans to set up at the former QFC come three years after national grocery giant Kroger chopped the 15th Ave E location over COVID-19 hazard pay.

PRFM will now put the longtime grocery back into motion.

“Plenty has changed in this city over the last 18 years, but we still charge only one dollar for the public to enter, we still encourage vendors to trade volunteer hours for booth space, and we still make a contribution to the Low Income Housing Institute after every market,” Okrent said.

Punk Rock Flea Market will hold its first event in June at 416 15th Ave E. To learn more or find out how you can help PRFM by volunteering, check out punkrockfleamarketseattle.com.

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