Dublin’s Victorian fruit market to be redeveloped

The Victorian fruit and vegetable market between Capel Street and the Four Courts in Dublin’s north inner city will be redeveloped next year as a “continental-style” food emporium.

Dublin city council has drafted plans and intends to tender for contractors by year-end, but has yet to release the project's estimated costs. Work is scheduled to start by autumn next year with plans to open the newly-restored market by summer 2015.

The council is currently undertaking a €1.5 million refurbishment of the building's roof and and electrical system. Constructed in 1892, the protected Victorian building has 6,000 sqm of internal space, currently used by wholesale fruit and vegetable traders. The new plan will see the wholesalers move to the western side of the building, while the remainder of the market will become home to an artisan food market including bakers, fishmongers, butchers and cheesemongers, as well as a range of other food outlets and cafes.

The announcement comes over ten years since the market's regeneration was first proposed. The €425 million scheme, which involved retail, leisure, accommodation and office development, got to an advanced stage of planning in 2007 – at the height of Ireland's property boom – but was later abandoned.