A downtown parking lot is now closed and surrounded by chain link fence as officials move to redevelop all the land on the south side of Plaza de la Democracia.

The parking lot is expected to become part of the new Museo de Jade once the municipality can usher away the vendors who sell tourism items on a street that has been converted to a market.

The jade museum now is in the southwest corner of the Instituto Nacional de Seguros building on Avenida 7. Only some 1,355 of the 5,256 pieces held by the museum are on display, said officials. The museum has had this location for three years.

The location is better than the 11th floor location that housed the museum earlier. Access for visitors always was a problem, and the museum has only been open during normal business hours. Five years ago a plan was floated to build an external elevator on the face of the Instituto Nacional de Seguros building so visitors could get to the museum at times when the entire building was not open. But then-president Abel Pacheco quickly shot down that plan for financial reasons.

The new facility is estimated to cost from $6 to $7 million. The outline of the plan was announced in February 2008.

The proposal for the new building would create a corridor of museums from the Museos del Banco Central under the Plaza de la Cultura to the Museo Nacional, which is in the old Bella Vista fortress east of Plaza de la Democracia.

The vendors are not going quietly. They have been protesting the municipal plan to relocate them to a structure south of Avenida 4. The vendors used to be much closer to the center of the downtown, but they were dislocated once before by municipal officials. However, they never got ownership of the land on which their small stalls are located.

The parking lot that has been closed was well known for downtown shoppers because it was not far from Más x Menos, the supermarket, and those with vehicles usually parked them there. The store provided carryout service to the lot.


Firemen, police, Cruz Roja
get an emergency toll lane


The Sala IV constitutional court had ordered the Consejo Nacional de Concesiones to take immediate steps to open up an emergency lane at toll stations on the San José-Caldera highway. The lanes will be used by police, firemen and the Cruz Roja.

No one seems to have thought about the need for an emergency lane before the toll stations went into service under the operations of Autopista del Sol. Vehicles with sirens blaring and lights flashing have been held up at the toll stations.

The court also said that emergency vehicles do not have to pay tolls.  Héctor Ulises Chaves León, the director general of the  Cuerpo de Bomberos, filed one appeal after a fire truck en route to an emergency in San Antonio de Escazú had to wait in line at a toll station July 13. There were two other similar appeals.