Vendors to Return to Main Building at Charles Gordon Market Soon

Vendors will return to the main building at the Charles Gordon Market in St. James by the second quarter of this financial year, says Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon.

This assurance was given during a press briefing held at the St. James Municipal Corporation, in Montego Bay, on Monday (April 14).

“We are speaking to a section of the market that we are not going to completely rebuild. We are going to renovate a section and bring it up to a standard that is conducive to the activity. I’m not referring to the section that we did last year or the year before, which is the reinforcement of the columns. I’m not counting those. Because even with those in place, we are still not able to do what we want yet,” he noted.

Work on the building will include upgrading the bathroom, stalls, roofing, rewiring, painting and upgrading the flooring.

The Mayor also highlighted that the necessary repairs will be done to facilitate vendors’ operations “in a conducive space in a proper way”.

“For the main building, we will fix that area and ensure that the necessary amenities are in place [such as] bathrooms, stalls, everything that they (vendors) need to operate as proper business operators. We will provide that within the main building, so that they can relocate from our streets and into the market, which will follow a raft of other decisions which will improve order across the city of Montego Bay,” Councillor Vernon said.

During the press briefing, the Mayor gave several updates on the Corporation’s plans and upcoming partnerships for this fiscal year.