Situated on the corner of Blackwood and Courtney streets, North Melbourne, the Victorian Heritage Register-listed Metropolitan Meat Market was built in 1880 to a design of George R. Johnson. The complex comprises a market hall surrounded by offices, shops, bank, hotel and cooling chambers (added 1889-90). The privately operated market was the outcome of the meat trade's dissatisfaction with a wholesale meat market erected for their use at the Queen Victoria Market in 1868. The meat market closed in 1974, and after the building was purchased by the State government in 1977 it was renovated and opened a decade later as a craft centre. Since 1999 the building has provided office and workshop accommodation for arts and craft organisations and artists.