Seoul said on the 1st that it has halted negotiations with the preferred bidder, the Doosan Engineering & Construction Co. consortium, for the Seobuseon urban rail private investment project and is moving to cancel its preferred bidder status.
The Seobuseon is an urban rail project linking Sinsaetgol Station in Eunpyeong District and Seoul National University Entrance Station in Gwanak District. It cleared the Ministry of Economy and Finance Private Investment Project Deliberation Committee in Dec. 2024, but the Doosan Engineering & Construction Co. consortium failed to secure investors for more than a year. The city notified the consortium that it would cancel its preferred bidder status if investors were not secured by Mar. 31.
In the end, the Doosan Engineering & Construction Co. consortium did not secure investors by the deadline, and the city plans to proceed with canceling its preferred bidder status. After hearing opinions for at least 10 days under the Administrative Procedures Act and after the 90-day filing period under the Administrative Litigation Act, the cancellation will be finalized in mid-July.
The city is preparing a re-announcement to select a new operator. To prepare for the possibility that no operator is selected, it is simultaneously conducting a preliminary feasibility study service necessary to convert the project to a fiscal project and carrying out procedures to reflect it in the urban rail network plan. In other words, it intends to push forward both a renewed private investment announcement and a shift to fiscal funding at the same time.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the area near Myongji University, where the Seobuseon will run, on the day. Oh said, "Starting with the Seobuseon, we will steadily push ahead with rail construction that conveniently connects daily life for residents and breathes vitality into local communities to ease the inconvenience of citizens in transport-neglected areas, while at the same time achieving balanced regional development."