Preston Market: Traders speak out over Preston Market development

For more than 50 years, a market in Melbourne’s northern suburbs has been dishing out bargains to shoppers. Now it faces an uncertain future.

Traders at one of Melbourne’s most popular suburban markets fear for their future if plans for a major overhaul — including building 1000 apartments — are approved.

Preston Market which has been selling fruit, vegetables meat and just about everything else for the past 50 years, is subject to plans which would demolish 80 per cent of the market to be replaced with 1000 apartments and a carpark.

The fruit and vegetable stands would remain while the deli and meat blocks would be moved 25m east of where it stands according to plans from joint owners Salta Properties and Medich Corporation.

However, community stakeholders, such as traders like Athina’s Deli owner Jim Katsaros and the Save Preston Market group, fear the market will be lost forever if the proposal goes ahead.

“I am going to lose, along with a lot of other people, whatever we make, whatever we put in with our blood and tears and toil, we’re going to lose it just like that because they don’t particularly care,” Mr Katsaros said.

“They just want to put up whatever they want.

“It will be a criminal act in a sense to just demolish the market like that because it can’t be rebuilt.

“It’s a 52-year-old market, you do not demolish such a market, it’s become historic and it’s community based, it’s the heart of people within the northern suburbs.”

In the recently concluded Standing Advisory Committee hearing, Salta Properties and Medich Corporation suggested there was not a lot of community support for the market to remain.

“They keep saying how the community is not really behind this, that there’s just a few people making a big fuss about it,” Mr Katsaros said.

“I am with the community every day and the majority of the community don’t want this historic market being demolished.

“I’ve been here for many years and I have yet to hear one person say ‘yes, please demolish this market’ and make a new one.”

It has become an important part of the state election landscape for the north with two candidates running platforms with a major focus on protecting the market

Gaetano Greco wants to save the Preston Market. Picture: Adam Daunt

Darebin councillor Gaetano Greco is running as an Independent and wants to see the market placed into community hands, similar to the Queen Victoria Market, to prevent similar developments.

“What I am hearing from people and traders is that they want the market to just be left alone,” he said.

“The developers and the state government, they talk about having a fresh food market, we want this market.”

“When you say a market, it means this market can be demolished and a new one can be built … if you destroy the market and build a new one it isn’t going to be the same.”

Stephanie Price, a Victorian Socialist candidate for Preston, did not support the developers’ plans for the site.

“We think it would be an absolute disaster for Preston and the north if any of the plans, either the ones proposed by the VPA or the people that own the market would proceed,” Ms Price said.

“It would involve the destruction of the market and as well as building some bastardised version of basically a shopping land.

“We’re not opposed to development or housing being constructed in the space around the market but there’s a lot better ways to go about it than what’s currently proposed.”

Preston Market remains a popular place to shop, traders say.

The developers were originally pushing for 2200 apartments to be built on the site before the state government slashed that to 1200 following community backlash.

A proposal from Darebin Council would allow 1145 apartments built but keep the market where it is

Salta Properties and Medich Corporation believe the apartments would enable young families to access the Preston area while providing “new public connections and open spaces.”

“While it will be a very different precinct, it will be one that will enable first home buyers, young families and those who have longed dreamt of Preston but couldn’t afford a house to access the wonderful suburb,” they said in a statement.

As a trader, Mr Katsaros hopes the market will remain for years to come.

“It can be done really, really well and they can have heaps of room to build whatever they want with the confines of the five hectares they have within the Preston Market,” he said.

“The Preston Market can be restored beautifully, it can be done really, really well.”

Labor, the Liberal and Salta Properties have been contacted for comment.