Moline’s Mercado on Fifth Hires New Director, Opens New Season June 4
After having to shelve its 2020 season due to Covid, downtown Moline’s Mercado on 5th is gearing up to reopen in June with a new sense of mission and a new leader.
Rocha grew up in the Floreciente neighborhood and has worked for the cities of Moline and Rock Island, as well as a paralegal for several Q-C law firms.
Anamaria Rocha, 36, who grew up in Moline’s Floreciente neighborhood, was hired earlier this month as Mercado’s new director. She joins the nonprofit organization, led by co-founder and president Maria Ontiveros, as it prepares for what will be the fifth season of the popular Friday night outdoor markets on 5th Avenue in downtown Moline.
“We could not have found a better person for the Mercado at this stage,” Ontiveros said in a Monday release. “Not only does Anamaria bring the skills needed to grow the organization, but she is passionate about Mexican culture and well-connected in the Quad-Cities Hispanic community.”
Rocha, whose work experience includes positions with the economic and community development departments in Moline and Rock Island, is the Mercado’s second director. Melissa Friedhof-Rodgers was the first – hired in fall 2019 and let go last June because of the cancellation of Mercado’s events.
“In a lot of my positions, there was a component of helping the Hispanic community like there is with this job,”
Mercado was founded in 2016 by Maria Ontiveros and her grandfather, Bob Ontiveros.
Rocha said in Monday’s release.
While working with the City of Moline, she created an online business resource guide aimed to help aspiring Hispanic business owners that is still in use. “I’m very passionate about helping Hispanics start their own businesses, and Mercado is a resource for that,” she said.
Since the Mercado was launched in 2016 by Ontiveros and her grandfather, Bob Ontiveros, founder of Group O, the organization has served as a platform for more than 100 small businesses and nonprofits. Working with its community partners, including Black Hawk College and the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Western Illinois University-Quad Cities, the Mercado has assisted over 25 new minority-owned startup businesses.
The 2019 attendance (from May through September) for its Friday night events was 20,000, compared to 16,000 in 2018.
Though Rocha’s new job duties still are being defined, she said her goals include growing the number of vendors and visitors as well as forging more partnerships with community organizations. She is also eager to put her event planning skills to work to expand and promote the market’s activities and entertainment offerings.
“We’re not straying away from what the Mercado has been, but we’re looking for ways for it to grow and attract more vendors and people,” said Rocha, whose own family has frequently attended Mercado events.
“A family-friendly space”
“I like that it is a family-friendly space,” she added. “The Quad-Cities has never had something like this before. There are other ones in larger cities, and it was exciting to get one here.”
Mercado on Fifth plans to reopen in June with visitors required to wear masks.
Rocha said the Mercado finally offers the region’s large Hispanic population “a place that is dedicated to them and their culture.”
It’s a culture she knows well, having grown up with her parents and six siblings in the Floreciente neighborhood – first in a house on Railroad Avenue and later across from St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
In fact, at about age 9, she was one of the neighborhood’s youngest entrepreneurs when she and her brother sold vegetables grown in their father’s garden to St. Mary’s parishioners leaving Mass. “My dad pitched the idea to me to earn money as a child. It worked,” Rocha said. “I sold a lot of tomatoes.”
Her summer-long business continued with her nieces and nephews. “We’ve all taken a turn with our own small ‘shop’ in my mom’s yard.”
Anamaria Rocha is the new director of Moline’s Mercado on Fifth.
Rocha is a graduate of Moline High School and the former Kaplan University in Davenport. She also studied international business at the University of Arkansas. Married to Marco Rocha, the couple lives in the Q-C with their three children: daughter Exayra, 12; and sons Messi, 10, and 2-year-old Jaxán.
In addition to city government, she worked six years as a paralegal for several Quad-Cities’ law firms. She was with Califf & Harper in Moline when the firm began an immigration law practice. She also previously was a court translator in Rock Island and Scott counties and a translator for UnityPoint Health –Trinity.
Working for Rock Island’s community development staff, she was tasked with helping attract more Hispanic residents to the city and served as the city’s housing and loan program officer. After Covid hit in 2020, she left her city job and sidelined plans to return to college to help her children with their remote learning.
The pandemic also changed course for Mercado, which was unable to hold its traditional outdoor markets last year. Tentative plans are for the market to return June 4.
Progress on indoor market
Meanwhile, work is moving forward with renovating an existing building adjacent to the Mercado to be an indoor, year-round market,
Maria Ontiveros is president of the nonprofit Mercado on Fifth.
Ontiveros said.
“We recently received our first check from the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity after being awarded a Minority Business Incubator grant in March 2020,” she said, adding that the next phase of construction begins this week. She hopes the building will be completed by the end of 2021.
“We will be using funds from the Moline Foundation to add heated concrete flooring and a grant from the Scott County Regional Authority to help cover the cost of extensive carpentry work,” Ontiveros said.
The Illinois grant of nearly $500,000 was part of $11 million in state funding for 32 minority-owned businesses and business incubators, from the Minority-Owned Business Capital and Infrastructure Program.
These grants will equip minority-owned firms with resources to create jobs, build capacity, increase revenues, and revitalize properties in underserved communities.
Mercado’s $495,700 grant will enable expansion into a much-needed incubator facility to create more equitable growth in the community.
The nonprofit is working on renovating the nearby former Car Shop, with the help of a $495,700 state grant, into an indoor year-round market with an outdoor patio.
In late 2019, Mercado, with real estate development group West Gateway Partners LLC, bought the 100-year-old former Car Shop Inc. at 423 12th St., Moline, next to the organization’s outdoor property.
Mercado and West Gateway, both managed by members of the Ontiveros family, are renovating the 6,300-square-foot building into a business incubator and event space at a cost of over
Mercado — on downtown Moline’s 5th Avenue, in the area of 12th Street — was canceled in 2020 due to Covid, but plans to reopen June 4.
$500,000, including a new outdoor patio.
Both Ontiveros and Rocha are confident that the state’s eased crowd restrictions will allow the market to open as planned. Visitors will be required to wear masks and hand sanitizer stations will be provided.
Rocha admits the ongoing pandemic may create anxiety for some potential visitors.
“The one thing we do know is people are ready to get out and we’re hoping they come back to the Mercado.”
Anyone interested in becoming a vendor at the downtown Moline market should contact Rocha at 305-934-5297 or anamaria@mercadoonfifth.org.
