The Mandaue city government will build a new public market where the old market used to stand in barangay Centro.
Mayor Jonas Cortes set aside plans for a People’s Center there after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake last Oct. 15 damaged the present public market behind the City Sports Complex, during which a vendor died.
The proposed People’s Center would have housed the new City Hall on its third to fifth floors with the first and second floors rented out as commercial space.
The new market’s proposed layout has been designed by the architectural firm Espina, Espina, Perez and Associates, but the proposal has yet to be finalized.
Cortes said construction will definitely start this year in order to benefit consumers and vendors.
Other priority projects of his administration this year include ongoing rehabilitation of roads and drainage and the construction of three more Bantay Mandaue 161 sub stations.
Cortes said the new market will be more accessible than the current one, and decongest traffic along A. Soriano Street in barangay Centro, which is one of the gateways to the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
At the public market, Bernarda Taw-on, a 64-year-old stallholder who has been trading for 15 years, said she was happy to hear about the plans.
She said the location of the current market was affecting her earnings because it was not convenient for consumers.
Fruit vendor Remilita Talingting, 55, also said she was glad to hear the market will return to its old site in the center of the city./Correspondent Norman V. Mendoza