BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan ordered the city’s Local Finance Committee to study the possibility of leasing-out the 4-storey Mines View Park building to maximize its potentials as a business center for the benefit of existing stallholders housed in the said city-owned structure.
The local chief executive admitted having received a proposal from a private individual for a long-term lease of the city-owned property built over a decade ago as a relocation site of vendors then scattered around the park.
“We need to ascertain the merits of the proposal to maximize the business potentials of the building so the members of the Local Finance Committee should seriously assess the offer and submit their recommendations the soonest to allow us to work on the lease of the property,” Domogan stressed.
Earlier, Councilor Lenadro B. Yangot, Jr., chairman of the City Council Committee on Market, Trade, Commerce and Agriculture, reported to Mayor Domogan that the second and third floors of the Mines View building is no longer being utilized for its prescribed purpose, specifically as a vending area for the vendors that were relocated to the said property because they have no alleged clients who patronize their products, thus, the affected vendors were constrained to clog up in the first floor to be able to entice park goers to buy their products.
He claimed that only the Mines View district heath center located at the third floor of the structure is functioning while the allocated stalls are now vacant considering that the vendors have time and again reported that there are no buyers that visit the place.
Domogan also ordered the City Buildings and Architecture Office (CBAO) to study the proposal of Councilor Yangot to convert the fourth floor of the building as a pay parking area to lessen the monstrous traffic jams in the area during weekends and peak tourism months where people flock to the place to view the mines in nearby Itogon town.
However, he explained that the conversion of the fourth level of the building into a pay parking area might be remote as the foundation of the structure cannot accommodate that heavy load, thus, the need for the CBAO to look for ways to address the plight of the vendors and convert some portions of the structure into a pay parking facility.
It will be recalled that the local government spent over P51 million for the put up of the 4-storey Mines View Park buildingfor the vendors displaced in the initial development of the park.
Further, the local government again allocated the amount of P10 million from its previous supplemental budget for the implementation of the needed interventions to address the plight of vendors.
Under the proposed long-term lease, the private individual will be paying to the local government annual rentals for the utilization of the structure for whatever propose that will strengthen the business activities in the area.
By Dexter A. See