The Mercat de la Concepció, the centerpiece of the block that delimits the streets of Aragó, Bruc, València and Girona and, to a certain extent, the engine of daily life in that portion of the Dreta del Eixample in Barcelona, will lose the next 15 October the supermarket with which it was reborn in 1997 after a deep (literally) remodeling work. The Caprabo chain communicated months ago to the Institut Municipal de Mercats its intention to lower the blind before the summer. It was agreed by both parties postpone the measure until October. It is not a minor issue. The balance of income and expenses of the municipal markets is, since they have been reformed one after another, a mathematical formula that is only viable if, in addition to the ‘paradistas’ and the underground car park, there is a supermarket inside the premises .
The municipal institute has already taken the first steps to start a new auction of the supermarket concession, of about 900 square meters. There are, say the sources consulted, companies interested in that location, but even for the regular buyers of the Concepció it is obvious that it is an architecturally very thankless supermarket. Only a very small part is at street level. To access the corridors where most of the offer is located, you have to go to a basement through some stairs, with a rather uncomfortable system for transporting carts..
the new supermarketwarn sources from the Institut Municipal de Mercats, will probably incorporate fresh product, something that in the initial concession of Caprabo was vetoed. This was agreed with the ‘paradistas’ in the first market reforms because it was then interpreted that internal competition could be detrimental to small establishments. The latest trend is to break this taboo, arguing that what really enhances a market is that the offer meets the needs of all types of buyers.
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The Mercat de la Concepción is, in addition to a city facility, a monument that receives many tourist visits. It is one of the most celebrated works of Antoni Rovira i Trias, the architect who could have been the father of the Eixample if the figure of Ildefons Cerdà had not stood in his way. As if it were a church destined to feed not the soul, but the body, it is characterized by its three naves, the largest of them, the central one, and characterized by its imposing iron structure. It was inaugurated in 1888 and, what is more important in the face of its present, in the reform of 1997 it maintained all its beauty.
It is not, compared to others, one of the busiest markets in the city, but 1.4 million people passed through its four gates in 2019. This 2022, perhaps, that figure will be exceeded because one of the unexpected effects of the most acute phase of the pandemic was that there were not a few Barcelonans who discovered the municipal markets as a place of supply close to home, and a part of that public You seem to have gotten into the habit of repeating.