In order to tidy up and reorganise Riga Central Market funding will reach several dozen million euros. A more specific amount will be known once a development concept and modelling work is done, said municipal Rīgas nami LLC board chairperson Baiba Beatrise Sleže in an interview.
“Construction costs continue rapidly changing. This is why speculating about any digits would be wrong. It is also clear that it will be a long-term investment plan, because you can’t clean and reorganise everything in two years,” said Sleže.
She also did not make any predictions as to when the Central Market could finally be tidied up and reorganised. Sleže explained that in the coming five years Rīgas nami
will be doing everything to satisfy the Central Market’s primary needs
and to make sure the market is operational. Currently Rīgas nami is working on the market’s development plan, because it lacked a specific development vision for a very long time.
“Markets keep changing in Europe, and so are their functions. The Central Market is the biggest closed pavilion market in Europe, but as competition goes up it is clear that we cannot keep using five large pavilions solely to sell food products. This means the market will go back to the functions it had 100 or so years ago, when it was a place for people to meet, entertain themselves, enjoy culture, use various services and do sports. These functions can be very varied,” said Sleže.
She explained that Rīgas nami and Riga municipality are currently working on the Central Market’s concept to understand the vision for the market’s territory. Sleže stressed that the territory is very, very large – more than 100 000 m2. On top of that,
the area covered by pavilions reaches approximately 30 000 m2.
It is an enormous territory. Nowadays not a single other European city has such a large market territory.
Sleže stressed that the market vision has changed completely, and the city needs to look for the need for markets and what the city and residents need at the moment.
These topics will be in focus during the concept’s development. Sleže said that, on the one hand the property needs to bring in some profits, it needs to be economically sustainable. On top of that, it needs to be a place where people can buy fresh and locally produced products. This function will definitely remain, but to what extent Rīgas nami cannot say at this time.
When asked if the Night Market, which has become rather popular among residents, is at risk, Sleže said it will remain in one form or another. It has the most direct way for buyers and sellers to meet and it is the shortest and most ecological supply of food products.
Rīgas nami has already completed the concept for industrial products for the next five years or so. The vision is the clearest for this portion of the market. Where there was once an industrial goods market clean-up work in progress in order to introduce sustainable solutions. Nevertheless, Sleže said cleaning up the territory alone will require at least one whole year.
“Currently we can see that with competition in commerce, with supermarkets entering the market, as well as the general food product availability in the city,
there is no longer a need for such large market territories to sell food products.
The food sellers we have in all categories we can place in existing pavilions. We have a fish pavilion and a roots pavilion, which are closed at the moment due to reconstruction. There is also a dairy pavilion, where most of the goods sold are industrial. We also have caterers and a separate meat pavilion and gastronomical pavilion. Except for the roots and dairy pavilion, the other three sell only food products,” said Sleže.
She said the Central Market’s needs are great, and they have accumulated over a very long period of time. Almost all pavilions are in need of reconstruction, roof repairs and surrounding territory improvements.
Municipal company Rīgas nami LLC operated with profits of EUR 150 000 in the first half of the year. The company’s turnover reached EUR 10.4 million.
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