It's a sure thing now. The Kupcy Dominikańscy company has sold the 19th-century Market Hall in the heart of Gdansk for 65 million zlotys. About a hundred merchants used to have their stands there, selling clothing and shoe goods and offering small services. Now the historic building has fallen into the hands of an investor, the Apsys Group, which plans to revitalize and change the building's function.
After the revitalization planned by Apsys, the Market Hall building, located in the Old Town in Gdansk, will be dominated by a gastronomic offer. Four restaurants with waiter service will be located on the top level, and a food hall will be built on the first floor. The traditional retail function will be retained only on level -1, where fresh food products will be available for purchase. The investor announces that after the renovation, vegetable, fruit and flower stands will return to the Green Market in front of the hall.
- Our goal is to create a space that will be a culinary and cultural center, while preserving the commercial character of the place, says Benoît Charles, president of Apsys Polska.
Market Hall in Gdansk from a bird's eye view
fot. Piotr Wittman/ gdansk.pl
However, the project raises mixed feelings. On the one hand, in recent years the hall has struggled with a decline in the number of customers who have drifted away to shopping malls or buy on the interet. On the other hand, downtown's offerings for regular residents have been shrinking for years. More stores and services they used to use are disappearing, replaced by tourist-oriented establishments. More residents are moving out of the heart of Gdansk: figures for 2023 show that the number of Downtown residents has shrunk by 20 percent over the past decade.
The revitalization of the Market Hall building will take a year and a half and will be carried out according to the guidelines of the Pomeranian Regional Monument Conservator. The total cost of the investment will be PLN 141 million.
Market Hall in Gdansk. This is how the interior will change
The interior of the hall will undergo a major revitalization, the project was prepared by Boris Kudlička with Partners, a company known for its interior designs of cultural venues such as opera houses and theaters, as well as public spaces in Poland and abroad. Boris Kudlička, founder of the studio, has completed projects for the Grand Theater - National Opera in Warsaw, as well as collaborating on international stage productions.
Gdansk Market Hall. Retail stands will remain only on level - 1 and on the Green Market in front of the building
mat. Apsys
- Any monument that is not given a function - degrades," comments Dariusz Chmielewski, Pomeranian Regional Monument Conservator, in an interview with AiB . - After part of the trade was taken over by Forum Gdansk and other shopping malls, the Market Hall needs a new function. I think the concept presented by the investor is successful: it will expose the historic building, there will be a food court, and trade will be partially maintained.
Chmielewski adds that he was primarily concerned with restoring the sense of the original space, including the beautiful decorated steel structure and exposing the brick walls in the interiors, which are now covered up with stands.
- All these elements are to be exposed. With the investor, we discussed for the longest time how to place the technical infrastructure, which should not be conspicuous, and how to heat the building using new technologies: heat pumps will be located outside the building's outline, the Pomeranian conservator explains.
As part of the investment, comprehensive conservation work will be carried out on all elements of the building - facades, interiors, metalwork, the structure of the building as well as all elements of the window and door frames and vestibules. The investor announces that low-emission finishing materials, certified wood and furniture made by local company Migaloo from recycled materials left over from the renovation of the Hall will be used.
Gdansk Market Hall before renovation
Natalia Gajdanowicz
Gdansk Market Hall. A place with a rich past
Erected 1894-1896 according to the design of architect Kurt Fehlhaber, the building was supposed to make street trade orderly. And so it did, with its opening, the markets in the Main and Old Town - with the exception of the one in the Fish Market - were closed.
The hall then housed more than 180 stands in the form of wooden kiosks and tables on which merchants lined up fresh meat, cold cuts, bread and dairy products. Trade flourished six days a week, and in addition, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, it was also bustling in the square adjacent to the hall, where as many as 600 fruit and vegetable stands were set up. Fortunately, the Market Hall was not erased from the city's landscape by the war - the building did not suffer much damage, and continued to serve the same function until the end of 2024. The fact that one investor would like to buy the building and open a foodhall in it had been speculated in the city for several years.
