If you recommended The Charlie Horse to a friend visiting downtown in 2022, that recommendation doesn't work anymore. The space has changed hands at least twice since. If you told someone to bring cash for the farmers market at Electric Works and call it "Ft. Wayne's Farmers Market," you'd be sending them to a name that hasn't existed since the fall of 2025. Meanwhile, if you walked past the building next to Union Street Market in March, you'd have seen scaffolding. Walk past it now and 296 apartments are full, or close to it, and the ribbon got cut back in April.
Electric Works is changing at different speeds. The residential side is open, while the retail and food side continues to change. For people living nearby, it helps to know which parts are established and which are still being built out; older recommendations may no longer reflect the current lineup.
The building side just hit its stride
On April 15, developers cut the ribbon on The Elex, the $100 million second phase of Electric Works. The finished building holds 296 apartment units, including 89 designated as affordable housing and 59 reserved for residents 55 and older. Kevan Biggs, president of development partner Biggs Group, told Inside INdiana Business that assembling financing for a mixed-income project wrapped around a parking garage created real complications along the way.
The building didn't arrive all at once. The age-restricted portion opened first, with move-ins beginning in 2025, and the all-ages building with three-bedroom layouts followed into 2026. Now that both are open, the development team's stated focus has shifted from construction to leasing the remaining units and filling ground-floor commercial space, which still has a fitness and wellness center and a 10,000-square-foot early childhood learning center in the pipeline.
This is the calm part of the story. A large residential project, financed through a mix of tax credits and public-private partnership, went from framing to full occupancy push in about a year. That's the kind of execution timeline that tends to hold.
The food hall's lineup has changed
Union Street Market opened in November 2022 as Northeast Indiana's first year-round indoor food hall, with plans to eventually sign around 25 vendors across an East Hall grocery concept and a West Hall bar and prepared-food concept. The original lineup included Plowshares at the Market, an agricultural co-op selling fresh produce, The Charlie Horse as the market's bar, Pasta di Guy, Pikoso Burritos, Buyamba Sandwich Company and Sweet Shoppe, Carmeli's Dough, and a handful of others added through 2022 like Kekionga Craft Company and Conjure Coffee.
By April 2026, the picture looks different. A vendor letter went out that month notifying merchants that Crane Bar and The Neon Pear, the bar and gift shop that had taken over where The Charlie Horse used to be, were both scheduled to close, along with Plowshares, which lost its federal funding and is relocating off campus. The same letter said management had been interviewing new operating groups for the market.
Here's how the vendors' status stood around the April 2026 notice:
| Vendor | Status |
|---|---|
| The Charlie Horse (2022 bar concept) | Gone; successor concepts also closing |
| The Neon Pear Bar & Gift Shop | Closing per April 2026 letter |
| Plowshares at the Market | Relocating after losing federal funding |
| Pasta di Guy | Open |
| Savor Burgers and More | Open (joined February 2025) |
| Buyamba Sandwich Company / Sweet Shoppe | Open |
| Conjure Coffee | Open |
| Johnny Ox Pizzeria | Open |
| ACO Sushi, Ghibli Mediterranean Cuisine, O-Cha Thai | Open, newer additions |
Nine independent merchants are confirmed open, compared with an original ambition of 25. The market's vendor lineup has changed over time, and the April 2026 letter also listed vendors scheduled to close or relocate.
Even the farmers market changed its name
The market in Dynamo Alley has its own version of this story. Ft. Wayne's Farmers Market, founded in 2012 by Leigh Rowan, moved onto the Electric Works campus for the summer 2023 season starting that May, then settled in as a year-round fixture there the following year. Ownership began transitioning to the nonprofit Electric Works Public Market Trust in October 2024. That transition didn't go smoothly. By August 2025, Rowan Donahue announced she was stepping away, writing that she'd been unable to reach an agreement with the trust's leadership for over a year.
"We are grateful for the strong foundation Leigh Rowan built and we are committed to building upon it."
That's Riley Johnson, board president of the trust, as quoted by WANE in its report on the split. The market reopened under a new name, Summit City Farmers Market, with a grand reopening on September 27, 2025, and it has continued running the same weekly slot since: Saturdays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Dynamo Alley through the summer, with a winter indoor season inside Union Street Market from November through April.
If you've been telling people to look for "Ft. Wayne's Farmers Market," you're pointing them at a name that no longer exists. The market itself didn't go anywhere. The name and the ownership did.
A different rhythm at Promenade Park
A few blocks away, Promenade Park's public programming follows a different model from the food hall's privately leased retail space. Promenade Park's Dragon Boat Races just marked their 10th year, held July 31 and August 1 this year. Last summer's races, held August 1 and 2, 2025, drew around 9,500 people and 23 competing teams. RiverDrums, the summer cultural night at Promenade Park featuring performances like Fort Wayne Tänzer, the German folk dance troupe, alongside a one-woman play on Rosa Parks, ran again this June.
These are different kinds of places to visit. Public parks programming, funded through the city and the Riverfront Fort Wayne nonprofit, follows a recurring calendar. Privately leased retail space inside a converted industrial campus has a tenant roster that changes as businesses come and go.
What this means if you already live here
None of this is a reason to think less of Electric Works. A 39-acre former General Electric campus with 18 historic buildings doesn't finish becoming a neighborhood in four years, it settles into one gradually, in pieces, at different speeds. The residential piece just settled. The food hall piece is still settling, and probably will be for a while longer as the trust brings in new management.
The practical takeaway if you live nearby: treat the food hall roster as a snapshot, not a fixed map. Check before you send a houseguest looking for a specific bar or stall. Know that the market in Dynamo Alley now runs under the Summit City name. And if you're weighing whether to rent or buy near the district, separate the two clocks in your head, because the building occupancy story and the storefront turnover story are telling you different things about the same few blocks.
If you're thinking about what any of this means for property values or timing near downtown Fort Wayne, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks it block by block. Lion Heart Realty Group works this market every day and can walk you through what's actually stable versus what's still finding its shape. Schedule Your Free Strategy Call whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
