The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) has launched a public tender for the renovation of the heritage-listed Red Market (紅街市), according to an announcement published in the Official Gazette (BO) yesterday.
According to the announcement, potential bidders are required to submit their quotations by November 24. The bureau will unseal the submitted bids the next day.
The bureau has set a maximum period of 820 days for the winning bidder to complete the project.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon, whose portfolio also oversees the city’s municipal affairs, told reporters in May that the government expected the Red Market renovation project to get off the ground early next year.
The Red Market, officially known as Almirante Lacerda Municipal Market (提督街市), is located on the corner of Avenida de Horta e Costa (高士德大馬路) and Avenida do Almirante Lacerda (罅些喇提督大馬路).
The Red Market, which opened in 1936, was listed as a heritage site under the category of “buildings of architectural interest” in the 1990s. It is the only wet market building in Macau listed as a cultural heritage site.
The government has said that once the renovation of the Red Market gets off the ground, the stalls will be temporarily moved to the Provisional Patane Market (臨時沙梨頭街市) – which has not been in use since March 2018 when the nearby Patane Market Municipal Complex (沙梨頭街市市政綜合大樓) came into service.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau has said that the structure and facilities of the Red Market, which have been in place for over 80 years, have aged, because of which it is necessary to carry out major renovations. The bureau has said that the renovations will include the installation of additional electrical facilities, air conditioning, lifts and barrier-free facilities so as to improve its shopping and business environment.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau started its plan in 2017 to renovate the Red Market, but the schedule of the project has been repeatedly delayed, for a string of reasons such as preparatory tasks to ensure that the affected stall owners can move to the Provisional Patane Market building smoothly, and the need for the bureau to come up with a design proposal agreed by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) which has required the Municipal Affairs Bureau to ensure that the existing architectural features of the wet market building can be kept intact while strengthening its internal main structure with reinforcing steel and concrete so as to ensure the building’s structural safety.
