A wave of piecemeal redevelopment is gathering pace in southwestern Seoul, where telephone exchanges, factories and logistics facilities scattered across the urban core are being converted into mixed-use residential complexes. The KT Gayang Building in Gangseo-gu will shed its telecommunications designation after 35 years and be rebuilt as an apartment complex, one of a series of projects that supply housing by changing the designated use of individual sites. With large-scale land development all but impossible in Seoul, the approach is drawing attention as a new path to adding housing and reorganizing urban functions by tapping aging and underused lots.
Gangseo-gu recently opened for public inspection a revised urban management plan and a detailed development plan for a special planning district covering 4,887.6 square meters at the KT Gayang Building site in the 681-1 block of Deungchon-dong, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the district office on the 12th. The core of the plan is to remove the telecommunications facility designated as an urban planning facility in 1991 and develop a complex housing apartments, neighborhood facilities and welfare facilities for children and older adults.
The site will be developed with five basement levels and 14 floors above ground across a total floor area of 39,231 square meters, supplying 168 apartment units. More than half of them, 96 units, will have an exclusive floor area of 84 square meters to absorb demand from families. The floor area ratio is set at 439.98%. The approach keeps the existing quasi-residential designation while allowing high-density development on a telecom site that has lost much of its usefulness. The district office said the project "is meaningful in that it supplies housing to support the office and industrial functions concentrated in the Magok district."
Since the Seoul city government unveiled its "Southwest Seoul Redevelopment 2.0" plan in March to upgrade the functions of aging industrial areas and improve housing and living conditions, development plans converting existing industrial and office sites into mixed-use residential complexes have also been taking shape one after another. The former CJ factory site in Gayang-dong, Gangseo-gu, shifted toward adding about 960 apartment units to a plan previously centered on industrial and office use after a revised district unit plan was approved in July. The CBS site in Mok-dong, Yangcheon-gu, also pivoted from a plan centered on a knowledge industry center to a mixed-use project including 244 officetel units — studio units used as either a home or an office — and 55 senior housing units. The Seobu Truck Terminal in Sinjeong-dong, Yangcheon-gu, which cleared architectural review in January, will be developed into an urban high-tech logistics complex with 990 apartment units alongside logistics, office and retail facilities.
Further moves are also notable. Mixed-use residential development is under review at the Homeplus Gayang store and the former E-Mart Gayang store sites in Gangseo-gu. A plan is being pursued to develop an air force base site in Doksan-dong, Geumcheon-gu, into a complex combining housing, industry and green space. The KT Gangseo Building, the former site of the Hwagok telephone exchange, is also cited as a potential candidate. Lee Chang-moo, a professor at Hanyang University and Seoul's chief architect, said that "if development of various key sites beyond the KT lots is driven by private capital, it will have a positive effect on expanding supply not only across southwestern Seoul but throughout the city."
Behind the growing need for mixed-use development in southwestern Seoul lies an urban structure particular to the area, where aging industrial facilities and residential neighborhoods are intermingled. Seoul's main semi-industrial areas, including Yeongdeungpo, Guro and Geumcheon, span about 19.97 square kilometers, and problems have piled up alongside the aging of industrial facilities: narrow roads and a shortage of green space and everyday amenities. On top of that, as corporate research and development facilities and office functions cluster around the Magok Industrial Complex, housing demand in surrounding areas is rising. As of February, 202 companies had moved into the Magok Industrial Complex, including LG Group affiliates such as LG Electronics and LG Chem, as well as the Lotte R&D Center and affiliates of Kolon Group and E-Land Group. Presale prices at new apartment complexes nearby are also high. At Raemian Ellabinet, a redevelopment complex in the Banghwa No. 6 district of Gangseo-gu that went on presale in March, units with an exclusive floor area of 84 square meters were priced at around 1.8 billion won ($1.3 million). That is the backdrop to the growing need to supply housing on existing non-residential sites in the Deungchon and Gayang areas adjacent to Magok.
The city's Southwest Seoul Redevelopment drive is likewise focused on improving that urban structure. The idea is to upgrade the functions of aging industrial areas while expanding housing, cultural and green space functions, turning the area into a mixed-use city where industry and daily life coexist. Analysts say small-scale development of key sites is unavoidable if mixed-use projects that add housing while maintaining and reorganizing existing industrial facilities are to take hold as a new housing supply route for southwestern Seoul. Kim In-man, head of the Real Estate Economy Research Institute, said: "In Seoul, it is hard to supply housing through large-scale development other than redevelopment projects, so there is no choice but to go with a two-track approach that runs small-scale development centered on key sites in parallel." He added that "southwestern Seoul is well suited to this kind of small-scale development, so its potential should remain high."