The private academy building inside the large apartment complex Goduk Arteon in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, which has remained vacant for six years after completion, will be sold in a single block. This is the eighth attempt to sell it. The building, which was intended to be used as a kindergarten, failed to obtain approval due to a sunlight rights issue and changed its use to a private academy building, but it has continued to struggle to find a new owner. Although the sale price has fallen to about half of what it was two years ago when the initial sale was attempted, it is not easy to find a buyer because the building's use is limited to a private academy and demand is therefore narrow.
According to the maintenance industry on the 3rd, the private academy building inside the Goduk Arteon complex in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, has been put up for sale. The minimum bid price is 6.09 billion won, and the bidding method will be an open competitive bid for the highest price. Goduk Arteon (Goduk District 3 Reconstruction Maintenance Project Association) will close bidding by 4 p.m. on May 15 and open the bids the same day. If an appropriate prospective buyer appears, a contract will be signed on June 15.
The building has two underground floors and three above-ground floors, with an area of 1,722.67 square meters, and is a reserved asset of the liquidation committee of the Goduk District 3 reconstruction association. It was completed in Feb. 2020 along with multifamily housing and neighborhood living facilities inside Goduk Arteon, but it remains vacant to this day.
The building was scheduled to be used as a kindergarten for residents. However, after completion, it did not obtain approval for use from the local education support office, the permitting authority, on the grounds that it failed to secure sunlight rights. At the time, the association filed an administrative suit against the education support office, but the court in both the first and second trials ruled that the association had not gone through the procedures of submitting and obtaining approval for an educational environment assessment before the kindergarten's completion, and the plaintiff lost. In the end, in 2023 the association changed the building's use to an educational research facility (private academy).
The association has been trying to sell this building since Nov. 2024. There have been eight sale notices posted through this year. As the sales kept failing, the bid price has fallen to about half of the first notice's 12.731 billion won.
Given that the building is positioned as an educational facility within the complex, the association expects access from end users or investors who operate education facilities focused on preschool and elementary students. However, because private academies benefit from a "concentration effect," in which demand clusters in areas with multiple academies, demand may be weak for operating a standalone academy in a building inside the complex.
Ko Joon-seok, a professor at Yonsei University Sangnam Institute of Management, said, "Even if the shopping arcade inside the complex changed its use to a private academy, it does not look easy to attract academies because an academy district has already formed around Goduk Station."