Rail yard in southern Seoul to be redeveloped into IT hub

Social Affairs

Published: 12 Feb. 2023, 18:44

Rail yard in southern Seoul to be redeveloped into IT hub

The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Sunday announced plans to redevelop a rail yard in Suseo-dong of Gangnam District, southern Seoul, into a high-tech commercial area. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

The Seoul city government on Sunday revealed plans to redevelop a rail yard in southern Seoul into a high-tech IT commercial area.

In a press release, the city government office said that it will start planning the transformation of a rail yard near Suseo Station on subway line No. 3 and Suin-Bundang in Gangnam District, southern Seoul.

A currently discussed plan is to cover the rail yard with an elevated slab, and create a large park and buildings that house businesses and residential units on top of the structure.

The slab is expected to stretch about 83,000 square meters (20.5 acres) and, once completed, effectively link the Suseo and Munjeong neighborhoods on both ends of the rail yard, which have been disconnected from the railway storage facility.

In all, the redeveloped area will be about 204,280 square meters in size.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government wants to attract IT businesses and workers to the redeveloped zone, hoping that it would support the capital’s broader plan to revamp the Suseo-Munjeong region into the capital’s high-tech industrial hub specializing in robots and IT.

The park will be about 30,000 square meters in size, nearly triple the size of Seoul Plaza in downtown Seoul.

The buildings will be about nine to 16 stories high, said the city government, and surround the park.

An artist's rendition of the Suseo rail yard once the area undergoes redevelopment [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

The city said it would closely cooperate with Seoul Metro to ensure that construction for the redevelopment project does not harm the work environment of the rail yard underneath.

The initiative was said to have been inspired by the Rive Gauche in Paris, which Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited last October during his trip to Europe.

Suseo used to be a farmland subject to development restrictions. Over time, those restrictions were lifted and the population began to grow with the 1993 construction of Suseo Station and the 2008 construction of the nearby Garden 5 shopping mall in Munjeong.

The 2015 development projects of the Segok-2, Jangji and Wirye areas close by attracted more residents to Suseo, but the rail yard had long been criticized for hampering Suseo’s growth.

By the end of the year, Seoul said it would work out the specifics with Seoul Metro as to how the Suseo rail yard project will proceed and what areas cannot be transformed.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has released a string of plans to revamp the Korean capital ever since Oh Se-hoon was elected mayor last year. In August 2022, the city vowed to build more tourist attractions around the city such as large floating stages and waterfront sculptures along the Han River, as well as the world’s tallest observation wheel.

Two months later, Oh said he would create a large garden in Yongsan Park once the U.S. military completely leaves the Yongsan base.

Last week, the city government said it would significantly ease regulatory restrictions to allow the construction of creatively designed buildings, starting with the redesigning of Nodeul Island on the Han River.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]