Lotte Department Store is opening an urban shopping mall spanning about 17,850 square meters in Cheongnyangni, in northeastern Seoul. The company plans to draw younger shoppers and families with a mix of fashion, food and beverage, character intellectual property and experience-based content.
Lotte Department Store said on the 22nd that it will open Lotte Mall Belly Town Cheongnyangni on the 23rd at the Lotte Castle SKY-L65 landmark tower in Seoul's Dongdaemun District. It is the retailer's first new store opening in Seoul since Lotte Mall Gimpo Airport in 2011, a gap of 15 years. Lotte Mall Belly Town Cheongnyangni connects to the existing Lotte Department Store Cheongnyangni branch and has about 17,850 square meters of retail space across five floors, from one level below ground to the fourth floor.
The mall is smaller than the large mixed-use complexes developed on sites of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pyeong, but it concentrates on core brands. About 80% of its roughly 50 tenants are either making their debut at a Korean retailer or opening their first or largest store in the northeastern Seoul market.
Each floor is designed around a distinct theme. The basement level, which connects to Cheongnyangni Station, houses lifestyle retailer Miniso and Japanese homeware brand Nitori. The first floor is laid out as a place to rest, with a hand-drip bar from specialty coffee brand Terarosa, the first Seoul location of the well-known Busan bakery Gentz Bakery and the first domestic premium store of milk tea brand Chagee.
The second floor targets younger consumers. It features Musinsa Bag & Cap Club, a first for the retail industry, a 495-square-meter running specialty store from Decathlon and the market's largest Off Beauty store. The third floor includes the largest Daiso in Dongdaemun District, family restaurant VIPS and Spokey Kids Club, which combines children's play activities with cooking classes. On the fourth floor are Fun Square, a character goods store from Bandai Namco Korea, and the first domestic store of Japanese figure and plastic model brand Best Hobby.
Bounce, a large kids theme park, and restaurant brand Haidilao are also set to open in stages at their largest scale in the northeastern Seoul market. Lotte Group's character IP Bellygom is used throughout the mall, and a 5-meter-tall Bellygom sculpture has been installed in the outdoor plaza.
Lotte Department Store said it moved quickly on the opening after seeing growth potential in the area driven by expanding housing and transit infrastructure. More than 30,000 households are scheduled to move into surrounding areas by 2030, including the Cheongnyangni redevelopment district, the Imun and Hwigyeong districts and the Jeonnong and Dapsimni new towns. Public transit use is also expected to rise sharply with added subway and bus routes and wider rail development, including the Great Train Express (GTX).
Lotte Department Store aims to use the opening as a springboard to build up the Cheongnyangni branch as Seoul's third "Lotte Town," after Myeongdong and Jamsil. It plans to widen the passageway linking the mall and the existing department store and integrate services, while also renovating the department store's main building in phases.
Kim Si-hwan, head of Lotte Department Store's Cheongnyangni branch, said, "We worked to complete a Lotte Town that is compact in scale but has competitiveness beyond that of a large shopping mall through powerful content." Kim added, "We will keep growing it into the next-generation shopping landmark of the northeastern region."