The Yongsan International Business District urban development project, being developed as a global business strategy hub for Seoul, is breaking ground. It comes 10 years after the development plan was first reviewed.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on the 16th that it will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on the 27th in the area of 40-1, Hangang-ro 3-ga, Yongsan-gu. About 5,000 officials and Seoul citizens, including Mayor Oh Se-hoon, will take part in the ceremony.
Yongsan Seoul Core in the Yongsan International Business District is a key project of the city's urban space overhaul. The city aims to elevate Seoul to a global top-five city through the urban space overhaul.
The Yongsan International Business District is a mega-scale urban development project that maximizes the locational potential of the Yongsan area, the heart of Seoul and the face of Korea, to realize a three-dimensional, integrated, vertical city vision that brings together the Seoul Station–Yongsan Station–Han River axis as one.
This project, which develops a 456,099-square-meter zone around 40-1, Hangang-ro 3-ga, Yongsan-gu, will complete site preparation work such as roads and parks by 2028, and as early as 2030 begin move-ins by corporations and residents.
The Yongsan International Business District will consist of three zones by primary use: ▲ international business ▲ business complex ▲ business support. In particular, the "international business zone," which will drive the district's substantive growth, will be upgraded from the existing Type 3 general residential area to a central commercial area to induce high-density mixed-use development.
In step with this groundbreaking, the city is preparing consultation rounds with corporations to foster Yongsan Seoul Core as a cluster of Asia-Pacific headquarters for global companies. With a goal of the first global headquarters moving in in the early 2030s, the government and the project operator, together with the city, will encourage corporations to invest.
The city will make every effort in schedule management to ensure foundational works are completed by 2028, and will provide maximum administrative support so that subsequent private building groundbreakings can proceed swiftly.
The city will also work to expedite housing supply. It plans to swiftly push administrative support for land sales and building permits so that dwelling sales can take place as early as the end of 2027.
Alongside this, within the scope that maintains international business functions and allows for swift project progress, the city will also review ways to expand the volume of housing supply. To ease the imbalance in dwelling supply and demand due to a shortage of housing sites in central Seoul, the city plans to closely examine additional expandable volume on top of the 13,000 units released in Nov. last year.
Taking into account the project schedule, including the start of foundational infrastructure construction at the end of this year, the city will determine the expanded volume after consultations with related agencies such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Office of Education, within the capacity of infrastructure such as roads and parks planned in the current development plan.
A city official said, "Considering that a full redevelopment plan would take at least two years due to the need to carry out prior administrative procedures, a realistic alternative is to promote a swift supply of dwellings rather than fully revising the infrastructure plan to increase the housing volume."
The Yongsan International Business District is the last large idle site in Seoul, located at the center of the city's three axes (Gwanghwamun, Yeouido, Gangnam). Upon completion, as a core hub where regional headquarters of global companies and international talent cluster, it is expected to generate about 146,000 jobs and 32.6 trillion won in production inducement during construction, and after formation, 12,000 jobs annually and 3.3 trillion won in annual production inducement.
Im Chang-su, director general for future space planning at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, "Yongsan Seoul Core is a downtown reinvention project that will open the next 100 years of Seoul. To compete with cities around the world, we will not pursue simple development but create a new urban culture centered on technology, culture, and people," adding, "It will be a decisive opportunity to propel Seoul into the world's top five global cities."