Indoor food hall and hotel planned for Market Street site

Plans will be submitted to Galway City Council in the coming months for a 200-room hotel and an indoor food hall on Market Street in the city on the combined Market Street Car Park and Connacht Tribune sites.

The food hall will cover 17,000 square feet under a double height ceiling and will be modelled on similar food markets in Europe.

Discussions are under way with a hotel operator which specialises in boutique-style city hotels in Europe.

The plans will also include a 120-space car park.

A spokesman for Royal Horizon Ltd, which purchased the Market Street Car Park in 2015, confirmed this week that it has agreed to purchase the Connacht Tribune premises adjoining the car park.

The Connacht Tribune business will continue to operate from the building in the medium term.

It is also intended that the Connacht Tribune Print Works can continue to host events such as the Galway International Arts Festival Gallery while the planning process is under way.

It is envisaged that the Market Hall, which would focus primarily on food, will have capacity for 80 market stalls under a feature lantern roof light.

The building will be three storeys high over an underground car park. With a roof top terrace restaurant.

The area of the site which backs on to Bowling Green is believed to have a significant part of the old city underground. It is proposed that this would be re-exposed, preserved and incorporated into a new landscaped public area at the rear of the new market building.

The spokesman said that the company is in discussion with the Planning Department of Galway City Council and had begun consultations with residents of Bowling Green which is at the rear of the combined site.

The company expects to submit a full planning application during the summer.