The Tainan City Government is planning to turn its largest wholesale food market into a leisure area where people can shop in a modern setting while embracing nature.
A fruit and vegetable market in Sinhua District (新化), expected to open in September, is to feature an open structure with a terraced green roof accessible from its eastern corner, where terraces would take shoppers down to the ground level, the Tainan Agriculture Bureau has said.
The terraces above the market would also feature local crops — pineapples, rice, roses and tea — said one of the market’s designers, Dutch architectural firm MVRDV.
The market would feature benches and picnic tables under the roof, giving the appearance of rolling green hills and providing a leisure destination, it said.
MVRDV said it hopes that the market would symbolize the beauty of rural Tainan.
The new market would replace an existing one in Sinhua that has been the city’s largest agricultural trade hub since it integrated four smaller markets in neighboring districts in 2012, bureau officials said.
However, the current facility has become outdated and cannot accommodate the increasing trade volume, they said.
It has also led to environmental problems, as it is at the center of a densely populated residential area, the officials said.
Hopefully, the new market, near the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3), would increase the trading volume of 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes per year to more than 80,000 tonnes, they said.
The increased space and modern facilities could make it easier for vendors to adopt auctioning rather than bargaining, which is more commonly seen in traditional markets and which curbs profitability, the officials said. Tainan has an agricultural output value of more than NT$60 billion (US$2.12 billion) per year, the largest among the nation’s six special municipalities.
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