The Cebu provincial government will offer to sell the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) to another interested party if negotiations with the Mandaue City government will remain deadlocked this year.
Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino said this yesterday after disclosing that many have expressed “interest” in buying the facility.
But since Mandaue City officials headed by Mayor Jonas Cortes have openly expressed their intention to buy the CICC, Tolentino said the Capitol has not yet entertained inquiries from other potential buyers.
Damaged by last year’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake and supertyphoon Yolanda, the CICC management initially sought funds to have it repaired after it was considered as one of the potential venues for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in 2015 and the International Eucharistic Congress in 2016.
The option to use the venue for the international events were eventually dropped due to the facility’s state of disrepair.
Following the development, Mayor Cortes said the city government wants to acquire the mothballed building for about a billion pesos, and convert it into a tourism and expo center
“If Mandaue really is willing to pursue this, we also need to know now. There are others who are interested and asked us what our plans are going forward,” he told reporters yesterday.
He added that the Capitol is willing to lower its initial offer of P600 million, which was the figure that came out from assessment of the facility conducted by the Provincial Assessor’s Office.
But Cortes earlier said the city can only afford to shell out P280 million.