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The restoration of Mercado do Bolhão was awarded for 22,4 million euros. This endeavour, submitted to a new community funding, is expected to begin in 2018 and conclude in 2020.

The website of the City Hall of Porto has disclosed that this work, subject to a public tender started in December, with a base price of 25 million euros, was “awarded to the group Alberto Couto Alves, SA and Lúcio da Silva Azevedo & Filhos, SA by the amount of 22.379.000 euros, with the global execution deadline being 720 days [about 24 months, i.e. 2 years]”.

In addition, the City Hall states to have submitted on Tuesday a “second application to community funds” for “the investment of 7.406.647,06 euros” in the restoration of Bolhão, in order to add this funding to a first application that was already approved and that resulted in “the community funding of 1.566.263,27 euros (from an eligible investment of 1.842.662,67 euros)”.

The autarchy says works should start at the beginning of 2018, but this start was initially schedule “for September”, but has been “delayed in the tender phase, due to disputes between candidates that led to the suspension of procedures by virtue of the law”.

The City Council notes that the international tender for the rehabilitation of Bolhão “gained the interest of 41 economic operators which led to the submission of 12 applications, some of them group applications, at an initial stage”.

“The application of the technical and financial requirements established by the procedure resulted in the selection of eight applications. In the second phase, these candidates were called to submit a proposal. Five proposals were received, and one was excluded by the tender jury, he added.

The autarchy adds that “when the preliminary hearing was already in course, two of the candidates filed an indictment” and that “after analysed by the procedure jury, two more candidates were excluded from the tender”.

“Proposal assessments were concluded on the 3rd [Friday] with the approval of the final report by the Board of Directors of GO Porto [municipal company for the Management of Public Works]. The qualifying phase of the group is currently on its course”, stated the municipality.

The municipality notes that the temporary market that is harbouring the traders of Bolhão during the 24-month works is completed since September, being a “temporary structure created by the autarchy with an area that encompasses over five thousand square meters”, in Centro Comercial La Vie, at Rua Fermandes Tomás.

The temporary market was visited on September 20^th, by then candidate and now mayor Rui Moreira, who has highlighted the “optimal conditions” of the temporary market created to hold 86 traders of Bolhão. He was also satisfied by the adhesion of 80% of traders to market requalification.

During the visit, Cátia Meirinhos, administrator of GO Porto, has informed that 74 interior traders of Bolhão – from which 61 stalls (butcher, fruit, vegetables or fish), four restaurants, one grinder and eight carts – are to be transferred to the temporary market.

She added that from the 100 market interior traders, 25 have terminated their activity, mostly due to age related reasons.

As to the 40 traders from the exterior stores, 12 will be transferred to the temporary market, while the others have found solutions in other locations and about nine were considering the termination of their activity at the time.

In JN