SOUTH PORTLAND – The South Portland Farmers Market will have a new home in 2014, its third in four years.

On Monday, Feb. 3, the City Council voted unanimously to host the market in the City Hall parking lot on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting May 4. The new location also is a new day for the market, which had been staged on Thursday afternoons since its inception in 2011.

The outdoor market will run weekly through Oct. 26, after which it will move inside to its usual winter quarters in the gymnasium of the old Hamlin School, at what is now the South Portland Planning and Development Office, located at 496 Ocean St. The winter market, also staged on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will run from Nov. 2 through April 26, 2015.

“I’m really glad to see that we’ve finally got to this point,” said Councilor Linda Cohen. “It’s been a long time coming.”

“I think we’ve struck a nice balance between serving all the needs around this issue,” said Councilor Patti Smith. “I’m really excited.”

The South Portland Farmers Market, an inaugural address promise of then-Mayor Rosemarie De Angelis, opened with much fanfare and more than 20 vendors in Thomas Knight Park in 2011. Market manager Caitlin Jordan, a Cape Elizabeth town councilor who helps run her family-owned Alewives Brook Farm, picked Thursdays to avoid a conflict with other markets, including Scarborough’s Sunday farm show, which she also manages. The hope, she said at the time, was that people would stop at the market to pick up fresh produce on their way home from work.

However, heavy rains plagued the market’s debut season. The Thomas Knight Park location, deemed to be too far off the beaten path, also drew blame for a sharp drop-off in traffic, as did the park’s cobblestone walkway, which proved more picturesque than practical.

Council debate of a request to advertise the market with signs along Broadway touched off a long-running struggle regarding the fate of the market, ultimately leading to a move to Hinckley Drive, which runs alongside Mill Creek Park. However, the need to close off that street for the market led to discontent among residents, area businesses and council members, while vendor numbers began to wane.

The council voted in a host of ordinance changes in late 2012 that opened up the number of locations where the market could locate the following year, but Jordan and her fellow farmers continued to press for Hinckley Drive, favored for having the best visibility of several proposed options. Meanwhile, a competing market rose up in the Maine Mall parking lot in 2012, before moving inside the mall last year.

Jordan, who attended Monday’s council meeting but did not speak, said afterward that four current summer vendors, as well as one from the winter market, have expressed interest in the new time and location. Four farms currently attending markets in other towns also have indicated a willingness to set up shop in South Portland on Sundays.

Only two of last year’s vendors have rejected the change, said Jordan, although she noted the objection was to the day and conflicts with other commitments, not to the City Hall location.

Jordan said as many as three vendors may attempt to join Alewives Brook Farm in pulling off a Sunday double, displaying in both Scarborough and South Portland, or else starting in Scarborough, which runs in the City Hall parking lot there from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then decamping to South Portland City Hall at some point before that market closes at 2 p.m.

Still, Jordan said, only one vendor – Steep Falls-based Sweet and Savory Catering – has committed to attending this year’s farmers market in South Portland alongside her own produce van.

“Other than that, a lot of people have said keep us updated,” said Jordan, indicating that many past and potential vendors have been waiting on a definitive vote from the South Portland City Council, given the hand-wringing that has occurred over the market’s location during its previous two seasons, sometimes until as late as a few days before the market’s scheduled opening.

“It’s literally fingers crossed that it will now work out,” said Jordan. “I’m going to send an email to all of the farmers I know saying, ‘It’s done. It happened.’ ”