Adelaide Central Market general manager Aaron Brumby said future traders could occupy the cellars. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily

Hidden chambers buried beneath Adelaide Central Market for more than 50 years may some day host market traders, with a design competition on the cards to bring them to life.

Three cellars spanning about 80sqm underneath the Market are already accessible by staircase, and have previously been used for storage, but a further three are locked behind brick walls.

Adelaide Central Market general manager Aaron Brumby said the contents of the concealed spaces were unknown.

He said pilot holes would be drilled into the walls so that cameras could be inserted to peer inside.

Taking InDaily on a tour of the accessible cellars, Brumby said that, with significant renovation, the cellars could in future host thriving market businesses.

He said Market administration was considering holding a design competition to frame the best uses for the space.

The opportunity emerged after the Market received heritage plans from the State Library of South Australia, showing the extent of the hidden chambers.

The research was ordered as part of a separate design competition to find uses for the Market’s iconic, heritage-listed, three-storey tower. Except for storage on the first floor, the market tower has stood empty and disused for its entire 115-year history.

More than 20 local and interstate design teams have submitted their entries in the competition, and judging is already underway.

The teams are competing for three cash prizes of up to $3000, with a $1000 ($500 cash and $500 in market vouchers) prize available for the best student entry.

“We wanted to see if there were any opportunities to revitalise that space and have it (the tower) occupied and used in some way,” Brumby said.

“We’ve had architectural firms locally and nationally put forward their concepts and ideas, but also students locally.

“We’ve had some really varied and interesting concepts. We’re seeing things like a market tower café or restaurant, or even a gravity-fed microbrewery.

“One was a recording studio; another option was a tourism venture. There was also a gallery, and a bookstore … also some arts performance space.”

Former Integrated Design Commissioner for South Australia Tim Horton, one of the competition judges, said the entries had been “wonderfully diverse, wonderfully creative and wonderfully ready-to-go”.

“There’s a number you could imagine opening tomorrow and would slip straight into the street and cultural life of the city.

“It shows the huge interest in the site and the idea.

“This is a little project, big in ambition, big in potential, low on potential investment needed.

“And it’s probably the best big, small thing that embodies Adelaide – if we can connect the ideas to capital.”

One of the challenges for designers was to envision possible new entrances to the tower. The entrance is currently through Cappo’s Seafood, the smell from which has been known to rise into the first two floors of the tower.

Brumby said the tower could, in future, be accessed by external stairs, or by an entrance linked to the market car parks.

The winners of the design competition are due to be announced later this month.

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