Vendors due to take up spots at the reconstructed Kitty Market are concerned about the apparent lack of ventilation at the facility, which is scheduled to open on November 1.
The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) had planned to install air conditioning (AC) units in the market. However, due to City Hall’s financial constraints, Town Clerk Royston King had told Stabroek News that air conditioning would be restricted to the meat and fish section of the market, while extractor fans, among other things, would be used to ensure the entire complex is properly ventilated.
When Stabroek News visited the site yesterday, there were no changes made as yet to accommodate the planned measures for ventilation. Inside the still under construction market, spaces had been created with concrete walls used to separate stalls. No extractor fans were installed. On the eastern side of the market, stall spaces were also created for vendors to sell outside of the market.
“I don’t like the idea of AC. What would vendors do when there is a blackout?” Sherry (only name given), a vendor, asked.
The woman pointed out that not only would vendors suffer but customers would as well since the market would be extremely hot and dark during power outages.
She was also concerned about the monthly rental fees that stallholders would have to pay for such a convenience. “Most obviously the rental would be raised. They are spending millions of dollars to build a market like this and they would want to get back that money,” she noted. Currently, she said, vendors pay a rental fee of $1,750 per month.
She also suggested that vendors who had moved to the Stabroek and Bourda markets would not want to return when the market is completed. She said they would have grown accustomed to the “fast life at markets and returning to Kitty might be hard.”
Nandranie Persaud, a clothing vendor, said she was also concerned over the poor ventilation at the building. “I hear they said they would put AC one time and then they said extractor fans, so I don’t know what they are doing, but the building need ventilation,” Persaud stressed.
She noted that the market does not attract a large customer base and therefore it would be difficult for vendors to generate the needed revenue to pay the monthly stall rental. “They had told we the rent would be raised when the market is completed and we assume the rent would be a bit high,” she said.
However, she hopes that with the departments of the M&CC, housed on the upper flat of the market, more customers would be generated.
Meanwhile, vendors remain doubtful about the market being reopened by the stated deadline. They believe the market may be completed by mid-2017 given the amount of work left to be completed.
At the end of September, King had said that 65% of work had been completed and round-the-clock work was ongoing to complete the remainder in time for the deadline.
The cost of the renovation was pegged at an estimated $240 million by the M&CC. The redesigned facility is intended to compete with supermarkets.
