Lighting issues delay opening of refurbished Coronation Market

Almost one month after telecommunications giant Digicel handed over Phase One of the refurbished Coronation Market to the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC), the facility remains empty.

Vendors, including those already assigned places in the market, are still selling in makeshift areas and on the streets, while the KSAC continues final touches.

"We have not finalised the electricity and we could not put them in there without light," Town Clerk Errol Greene told The Gleaner yesterday.

"We are working to have it ready this week," Greene added.

That echoed statements of workmen inside the refurbished facility as they pointed to electricians working inside the market when a Gleaner team visited yesterday.

"Is just the light that is holding this up," one workman said, while noting that work on Phase Two of the market is far advanced.

Digicel aware of problem

Digicel is spending almost $200 million to repair markets in downtown Kingston. On November 11, it handed over the refurbished Phase One of Coronation to the KSAC.

Yesterday, a Digicel official said the company was aware that the vendors had not moved in because of the electrical problems.

"We have done our part and it is now up to the KSAC to complete the work," the Digicel official said.

The new-look facility, with streets named after popular Jamaican produce, is equipped to facilitate more than 300 vendors who were displaced when fire damaged sections of the facility in May.