The owners of the Metro Market have run out of ideas on how to make the business profitable, so after 2 1/2 years, they’re calling it quits.

“If we were a huge company with deep pockets, maybe we could have weathered the storm,” said David Schlarmann, the managing member of the investor group that owns the Metro Market. “I would still love to see this concept work, but we gave it all the resources we had.”

On April 30, the Metro Market will close its doors. Schlarmann has spent the past nine months trying to lease the building at 2002 Woodland Ave. to a major tenant as a way to cover overhead costs for the building, but with no luck, the property will likely be sold.

Schlarmann knew he was taking on a risk when he and former business partner Michael Kiernan opened the market, the first of its kind in the state, in the fall of 2003. In addition to the year-round indoor farmers market, the building also housed gallery space and an auction house. Kiernan left the market about a year later to focus on his campaign for a seat on the Des Moines City Council.

“I think what we started three years ago was perhaps three years ahead of its time, unfortunately,” said Schlarmann. “If we were to do it again today, we would do it somewhat differently.”

From early on, the auction house, which was intended to host live auctions and online auctions on eBay, fell short of its revenue goals. Schlarmann said when that part of the business, which was “one of the key pieces to making the Metro Market work as a whole,” wasn’t as successful as anticipated, the business had to be reconfigured to make it profitable. That meant changes to the most visible part of the business, the market.

The market had started out by being open two days a week, on Fridays and Saturdays. A variety of vendors selling food, crafts, clothing and other goods set up small stores inside and paid rent to the Metro Market based on how much space they occupied.

“It really had a nice energy when all the vendors were there together,” said Lemmo.

Last July, the market changed its operating style to a “general store” format, and stayed open six days a week. The expanded hours were intended to make it possible for customers to shop more often, thus increasing sales. Most vendors took down their booths, and products were moved to shelves and refrigerator and freezer cases.

“We were paying most of the fixed costs of a building that was only open a couple of days a week, so I approached the vendors about expanding the operating hours,” Schlarmann said. “Most of them didn’t have the staffing to be there six days a week, but they wanted us to continue to sell their products in the general store format.”

Picket Fence Creamery, one of the Metro Market’s original tenants, continued to sell its milk, butter, ice cream, cheese curds and other dairy products there after the operating format was changed. Jill Burkhart, who owns the creamery with her husband, Jeff, said the new format was better from a producer’s standpoint, and her sales stayed strong.

“It was great for us because we no longer had to be there,” she said. “Although we enjoyed the time we spent there on the weekends with our customers, we were also trying to run a dairy farm and a farm store in Woodward. When the store went to six days a week, it allowed us to free up our time.”

But not everybody liked the changes.

“Some people were glad that we were still there, but a lot of other people were a little bit disappointed that it didn’t have the same farmers market appeal of walking around and seeing a bunch of things,” Schlarmann said.

The general store format marked the beginning of the end of the Metro Market, said Tony Lemmo, who started his business, Café Di Scala, at the market in 2003.

“I think it lost its identity when the vendors left,” Lemmo said. “Products don’t have voices to sell themselves. I think what made the market wonderful was when people like myself were there to explain how the product was made and what would complement it.”

Schlarmann doesn’t blame the Metro Market closing on any one event, but on a combination of several things not reaching fruition. Maybe things would have been different if vendors had invested more of their own money on marketing, or if the market had landed a major restaurant tenant in addition to the Midtown Art Café.

Also, the market may have lacked the critical mass of downtown residents it needed to support the business. While Schlarmann questions whether the city was ready for a store like the Metro Market, some businesses that used the market as a launching pad to expand their brands say the timing couldn’t have been better.

With distribution in Des Moines at the Metro Market, Hubbard-based Iowa Farm Families Naturally Tender Pork found the customer base it was missing in its rural community of 800.

“The Metro Market has been a great business partner for us by allowing us an access point to reach the population that is interested in finer meats: the discerning cooks and local chefs,” said Al Doering, owner of Iowa Farm Families. Since Doering made his premium pork available in Des Moines, his products are now served in local restaurants like 801 Steak and Chop House.

Jill Burkhart, who owns Picket Fence Creamery in Woodward with her husband, Jeff, said her business has grown along with the Metro Market. When she first became a tenant at the market in 2003, she sold about 100 gallons of milk a week there. Now she sells about 500.

“We have a lot of loyal customers who make the trip to the market each week to pick up their milk and ice cream,” Burkhart said. “It’s worked out better than I expected.”

Tony Lemmo, chef and owner of Café Di Scala, also credits the Metro Market for helping him build a client base so he could pursue his dream of opening his own restaurant.

“I was fortunate to be a part of the Metro Market in the beginning, and that it was open long enough to help me get to the point where I could do what I wanted to do, which was open my own restaurant,” Lemmo said.

Lemmo was one of the first tenants at the Metro Market when it opened in the fall of 2003. Using his rented space at the market, he sold Italian specialty foods such as pastas, vinaigrettes, wines and fresh homemade sandwiches. Although Lemmo grew up in a family of restaurateurs, he wanted to ease into the major undertaking of opening a restaurant.

“The Metro Market just made sense,” Lemmo said. “It yielded very little risk and was an affordable way for me to quietly dip into the demographics of Des Moines, market myself and try out some different products. Being as young as I was and not really having restaurant experience personally, jumping into opening your own is a little intimidating.”

Schlarmann knows the challenge of starting a business from scratch, but he hopes now that another entrepreneur will rise to the occasion to open a business like the Metro Market to support local producers.

“It would be great for someone to come in now and capitalize on the successes we have had,” Schlarmann said. “I really think that something will come up that’s similar. If not in this location, then somewhere else downtown.”

The Metro Market will remain open Tuesday through Sunday through April 30. Its hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

Schlarmann is planning several promotions and sales leading up to the market’s final days in hopes of giving the producers whose goods are sold there “the push they need to keep going.”

“There’s never been a better time to support your local producers,” he said.