That's So Cincinnati: How Findlay Market has become the envy of other cities

Findlay Market CEO Joe Hansbauer highlights the improvements made to the market over the last 20 years on The Enquirer's "That's So Cincinnati" podcast this week. 

The market house was re-done and is bustling. The nearly 18 storefronts along Elder Street, are nearly full. There is Findlay Kitchen, a non-profit food business incubator, where 60 businesses are operating and now, Findlay Launch, which mentors business owners.

Hansbauer, who has been at the helm for nearly 10 years, says there's nothing he would rather be doing than than figuring out ways to highlight what he describes as a "jewel and gem that I think many, many other cities would love to have."

His work has helped draw 1.2 million visitors each year to Findlay Market, up from 600,000 annually when he took over in 2013.

Said Hansbauer: "It's built on authenticity. It's built on history. And in a lot of those things are not something you can recreate. There's not a week or a month that goes by that I don't hear from other communities and other public markets or communities that are looking to build a new public market. Louisville opened one two years ago. Lexington is looking to do that. We've had conversations with Reading Terminal Market n Philadelphia and Washington, D.C."