On a corner formerly known as a place to buy car tires, frenzied construction is wrapping up for new operators, dubbed "the butcher, the baker, the hamburger maker."

That's contractor John Mitchell's catchy term for The Fatted Calf, Model Bakery and Taylor's Automatic Refresher, the tenants preparing to occupy the old Goodyear tire shop at First and McKinstry streets.

These foodie businesses are part of the $10 million Oxbow Public Market, the biggest thing to hit the fledging Oxbow District since the opening of Copia six years ago.

Developer Steve Carlin has no doubt that the market, which will eventually have 35 retail shops, farm stalls and dining establishments, will be a hit with locals.

"The wild card is: How many of the 5 million (Napa Valley) visitors will we get," said Carlin, leading a tour of his work in progress.

"We're a month away from finishing. It doesn't look like it, but it is," said Carlin, maneuvering around chain link fences and construction workers who still have their work cut out for them.

Carlin is good at painting verbal pictures of how the market, with its purveyors of olive oils, Latin American soul food, hand-crafted chocolates and artisanal cheeses, will revolutionize the way many locals shop and eat.

But right now he's up to his taste buds in construction. "This is a big grease trap," said Carlin, pointing to an underground concrete vault that will serve Taylor's and other businesses.

"We're really in the fervor of trying to get it all built out," said Nancy DeMerritt, who is helping tenants get their building, health and city permits and synchronize the installation of equipment. "It's a big traffic control job," she said.

A goodly number of the market's vendors have never run a store before, DeMerritt said. "We try to figure out tenant needs before they become tenant issues," she said.

The main market building -- a wholly new structure -- seems to tower over First. The first floor was raised six feet to keep the market dry, Carlin said, while the Napa River flood control project plugs toward completion sometime in the next decade.

Elevating the building turned out to have advantages, Carlin said. Customers who take their food and drink to the big deck in back will now be sitting high enough to look out at water.

If the market had been built at ground level, customers might have stared at a levee.

The market hall is a spacious structure, formed by terra cotta bricks, steel beams and windows. A cross between a barn and a train depot, Carlin said. Vendors will operate out of simple stalls in the way of public markets going back to the beginning of time.

There will even be winemaking. Folio, at 800 square feet, will be possibly the smallest winery in the United States, Carlin said.

Seventeen of 25 interior spaces are leased. Perhaps half will open Dec. 12, with 75 percent up and running within another 30 days, Carlin said.

Many of his tenants are busy running other outlets. With the holidays being an important part of their sales year, they won't be able to finish their Oxbow spaces until the start of the new year, he said.

Ten additional spaces along the market's eastern outside edge are reserved for farmers and their produce. For these local growers, "I'm opening up at absolutely the worst time of the year," Carlin said.

The Oxbow Public Market will sell what's local and seasonal. "If you value strawberries in January, you won't find them at the market. It's about seasonality," he said.

The market should draw regular customers from all of Napa County and parts of Solano and Sonoma counties, Carlin said.

If it's a hit, annual attendance could reach 1 million. It all depends how much tourists want to be part of the Oxbow action, he said.