Fish market gets fresh site, $250m design

Sydney’s fish market will shift to the head of Blackwattle Bay with one of Europe’s leading architectural firms appointed to design the new facility while developers jostle for the existing site that is being primed for apartment ­towers.

The property, which began operating as a fish market in 1945, has had a colourful history, but appears set to be dominated by high-rise towers despite the city’s faltering apartment boom.




The NSW government yesterday unveiled Copenhagen-based 3XN Architects to design the new $250 million-plus markets after a competitive process that attracted more than 60 registrations from Australian and offshore studios.

The cost of the development is intended to be offset by offering the present site and car park to developers for apartments and commercial projects.

The new market will be built next door on industrial land ­occupied by the Hanson cement operations after a decade of false starts.

“A fresh look for the iconic fish market is long overdue and we can now get on with the job that has been in the too-hard basket for too long,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

However, the new market’s design and cost has been criticised by independent developers, including locally-based Robert Deans who proposed a more ambitious scheme that he argued would have produced a better commercial and community outcome.

The plans for the fish market came after the collapse in April of plans by state agency ­UrbanGrowth build new offices as part of the redevelopment of the White Bay Power Station.

Heavyweight property developers are now eyeing the construction of thousands of apartments on the existing markets that occupy a harbourfront site in Pyrmont.

Local developers Brookfield Multiplex and Lend Lease have been named, alongside Singapore’s Oxley Holdings, as interested parties for the project. The site has seen multiple proposals over the past decade and Brookfield is reported to have secured key surrounding properties.

Construction on the new markets is to kick off in late 2018.