Mérida, Yucatán — Major renovations to the city’s two main markets begin in January 2015 and are not expected to finish until August.
Repairs to Lucas de Gálvez and San Benito markets are overdue, and tenants have been protesting for years — and as recently as July — before City Hall to plead for work on the roofs, electrical systems, plumbing and drainage.
It is not clear where displaced tenants will ply their wares during construction, which will occur in both marketplaces simultaneously. Thousands of stalls pack closely together here, selling everything from shoes, jewelry and clothes to spices to meats and fish and even live animals.
The older and more touristic Lucas de Gálvez, built in 1948 on the spot in San Cristóbal that has historically been the place for trade, has a repair budget of 56 million pesos. East of the Lucas de Gálvez, the much larger, monolithic San Benito, built in 2004, will take 12 million pesos to fix, according to a city official.
In September, the smaller neighborhood Chen Bech market reopened after six months of work.
Sources: Sipse, Grillo Porteño
