Fish market opens as Sydney’s latest must-visit destination, but job not done

The relocated Sydney Fish Market opens for business on Monday after long years of ongoing controversy and cost blowouts, and we wish the new site every success.

Costs for the trouble-plagued project skyrocketed from $250 million to a massive $836 million over the eight years it took to build, and we can only hope it proves worth both the wait and the money, and that crowds of seafood lovers and tourists come flocking.

The project was riddled with problems from the start, but as the Herald’s investigative reporter Harriet Alexander perceptively noted, the fish market saga at times seemed another chapter in Sydney’s raffish history: “Hijacked by spivs, exploited by corrupt politicians, derailed by recalcitrant merchants, engulfed by internecine warfare, the path towards construction was bedevilled by competing interests, some of which continued to play out even as the new building rose from the sea.”

Established in 1945, the Sydney Fish Market moved from Haymarket to Blackwattle Bay in 1966 and remained highly regulated until the Coalition privatised the marketing of seafood in 1994. Fishing boat numbers dwindled, but the market received a new shot of life when al fresco dining made it a tourist destination.

In 2005, a long-awaited master plan to modernise the site was approved but the then Labor government backed out, leaving it to the Mike Baird Coalition government to give the go-ahead to a $250 million build in 2015. Two years later, the Berejiklian government awarded Danish architect 3XN/GXN a contract to overhaul the market precinct.

But costs ballooned; the builders, subcontractors and the privately run Fish Market Pty Ltd squabbled. There were sweetheart deals, lawsuits flew around and the timeline blew out.

The fish market has long been both a disgrace and a lost opportunity – and over the years, we were critical of the delays, pointing out that the old saying that a fish stinks from the head appropriately laid responsibility for the failures where they belonged: Macquarie Street.

The Sydney Fish Market starts life as another government infrastructure project with a problematic history – opening without the proper transport links in place.

While the new site is expected to attract six million visitors a year, double that of the old site, it provides the same 400 parking spaces. A $30 million ferry wharf for services from Barangaroo, announced in last year’s budget, will not be ready until at least 2027.

The ferry wharf delay certainly takes the shine off the big day and the government had adequate time to ensure light rail upgrades had already started. Instead, Sydneysiders visiting their newest must-visit destination face the same old congestion. Car spaces are limited and the nearby light rail line and bus routes that service the precinct could be choked with passengers.

The new Sydney Fish Market is the first stage in a major State Significant Development project being delivered by the NSW government as part of the larger Bays Precinct urban renewal. Macquarie Street must make sure it follows through and completes the process.

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