NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday announced the specifics of the new Sydney Fish Market. It will undergo a redevelopment and re-location valued at $250 million. Construction will begin at the end of 2018.

The new market will be located at the head of Blackwattle Bay and will be designed by Danish architect firm 3XN, which was also behind the Sydney Quay Quarter Tower. 3XN is internationally recognised for its waterfront buildings, including the National Aquarium in Denmark.

The fish-market building will host several more restaurants than the current site, cafes, and bars. It will have foreshore space for dining, leisure activities and a public boardwalk. It will also be accessible by light-rail and plans are being made to give it a ferry stop.

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“There’s talk of including a rooftop bar and some function space,” the general manager of the Sydney Fish Market, Bryan Skepper, tells Broadsheet.

We’re also promised the market experience will improve with the new site with a better flow for the vendors. Visitors will be able to watch the auction process live, and learn about sustainability and the fishing process.

The current Sydney Seafood School also plans to expand and offer more options for culinary training and an education facility. In the future, the Sydney Fish Market is looking to collaborate with tertiary education institutions.

The design team features GXN (3XN’s innovation unit in Sydney, responsible for sustainability); Sydney firm BVN (executive architect); Aspect Studios (landscape architects); and Wallner Weiss (public-art specialist) for the project.

“The whole building is sort of a landscape, the building swoops down, it will be organic movement,” says 3XN Architects creative director and founding partner Kim Herforth.

A high-rise residential development will replace the old Sydney Fish Market in the Bays Market District.

'the exact numbers [of homes created] will be determined through the masterplanning process, which is expected to commence later this year' a spokesperson from UrbanGrowth NSW told Broadsheet.

According to the Sydney Fish Market’s Bryan Skepper, the development is projected to double the tourism to the Fish Markets from three million to six million per year. For Sydney Fish Market this is a needed lift; it reported a profit-margin drop of $1.7million in its 2016 annual report.

“[The new market] will allow the industry to start developing into the future, for too long it has been stuck in the past,” says Peter Manettas, the owner of online seafood business Peter Manettas Seafood, who works with the market and knows its workings well.

“What we would like to see is long-term growth, more jobs coming to Australia, and the spotlight on the industry internationally, not only as a tourist destination, but as a trading facility across the globe,” he adds.