Ponce Servicios

rdf:langString Ponce Servicios

rdf:langString Ponce Servicios

rdf:langString Ponce Servicios

rdf:langString Octavio Rodríguez Jr.

rdf:langString Originally, marketplace;

rdf:langString Today, government offices

rdf:langString Ponce Servicios, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, looking Northwest

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rdf:langString approx

rdf:langString In Service - In Use

rdf:langString Ponce Servicos, formerly Plaza del Mercado Juan Bigas, is a brutalist municipal building located Ponce, Puerto Rico. It is the largest building in the municipality in terms of footprint area and the only one that occupies an entire city block. The structure was built in 1981 as a way to provide a modern, air-conditioned, structure for the merchants and shoppers of the historic but aging Plaza de Mercado Isabel II building, while the latter underwent restoration. On its opening day it was named Plaza del Mercado Juan Bigas, in honor of Juan Bigas Moulins, the Ponce businessman by that name. Upon its opening, some of the former fruits-and-vegetables merchants from the old Plaza del Mercado Isabel II building moved in, but many did not. Objections ranged from rent being too high to not providing the friendly atmosphere of the old Isabel II building provided because many perceived this brutalist architecture building as one that did not carry on the important city historic values conveyed by the old Art Deco Plaza del Mercado Isabel II building. In spite of these objections, the new building was used as a fruits-and-vegetables farm market plaza for 26 years, until 2007, when the restoration of the older Isabel II building was completed. On that year (2007), Plaza del Mercado Juan Bigas building was vacated, and merchants moved back to restored Plaza del Mercado Isabel II building, and the building came to be known simply as the Juan Bigas Building. The Juan Bigas building then sat unused for three years, until 2010. In that year, after negotiations between the central and municipal governments, the Government of Puerto Rico transferred the structure to the Ponce Municipal Government. The Ponce municipal government reconditioned the building, now no longer called Plaza del Mercado Juan Bigas, but simply Edificio Juan Bigas (Juan Bigas Building) for use as office space for several municipal agencies. In October 2013, the Ponce Municipal Government reopened the building as a multi-agency municipal building offering a mix of municipal services to its residents and christened it "Ponce Servicios" (Ponce Services).