El Cardo opens unfinished - San Miguel de Allende

Running a month behind the official inauguration date, the El Cardo parking lot opened on July 4. Guanajuato governor Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, Mayor Juan Antonio Jaramillo and ISSEG director Jorge Estrada Palero presided over the opening ceremony in San Miguel de Allende.

The construction cost US$750,000 to build, although initial cost estimates given in 2005 put the budget at US$600,000. The 27,000-square-meter, two-level parking lot has a current capacity for 683 vehicles, but will reduce capacity to 483 spaces for the construction of second stage retail stores. The lot offers 24-hour service. Parking costs 9 pesos per hour and 15 pesos for buses. Overnight parking rates have not been finalized. The only store currently open is the pharmacy operated by the lot's owners, ISSEG, the State Institute of Social Security. ISSEG authorities did not announce when the second stage of the construction of banks, restaurants and stores would begin. Last year, Atención reported plans to build a "strip mall" above the parking lot, which was emphatically denied by former mayor Luis Alberto Villarreal. At the time, he stated that all plans for construction must be approved and reviewed by municipal authorities. At the inauguration, Mayor Jaramillo said the parking lot is "a solution for the parking problem in San Miguel, offering a quality service to residents and visitors." According to Jaramillo, there are currently 22,000 cars circulating in the city, more than twice the 10,000 that circulated in 1995. Bidding for the bus service to take people to Centro will open soon, and there is no determined deadline to receive bids. For Jaramillo, the lot provides easily accessible parking close to downtown. "San Miguel is being promoted for recognition as a World Heritage site, and one of the requirements is to have a downtown that is visited by many tourists on foot," he commented. Jaramillo did not mention whether the on-street, free parking on Ancha de San Antonio, which now competes with the parking lot, would be restricted or prohibited. The parking lot is owned and managed by the ISSEG as an investment of the pension funds of more than 50,000 state government workers. "El Cardo is the result of joint efforts by several government agencies, the municipal presidency of San Miguel, the Public Works Department, the ISSEG and the Ecology Department," said Estrada Palero. According to Palero, the project created 380 direct jobs and 600 indirect employment opportunities during construction. Since its opening, El Cardo has created ten permanent jobs in the parking lot and another five in the drugstore.

Governor Romero Hicks stated that ISSEG's pension fund has increased from 500 to 5,000 million pesos over the past six years. "Malls and parking lots like the ones in Irapuato and Guanajauato, and now in San Miguel, are an important part of increasing the pension fund," Hicks said. The governor ended his speech saying that before his administration is concluded, the new general hospital in San Miguel will be completed.