Seoul's Bangbae Police Station is moving into its own building for the first time in 35 years.
The station will relocate department by department from the 19th through the 25th to a newly built facility in Bangbae-dong, Seocho District, Seoul, police said on the 19th. The move ends about eight years in temporary quarters and marks the first time the station has occupied its own building since it opened in 1991.
Since its opening, Bangbae Police Station had used a former building previously occupied by Gwanak Police Station. Built in 1976, the aging facility suffered from deteriorating conditions and a shortage of space, inconveniencing both visitors and staff. During heavy rains, parts of the building flooded and the structure experienced subsidence. Police decided to construct a new building on the site of the existing one and pushed ahead with the project. The station had rented space in a private building for use as temporary quarters since 2018.
To minimize disruption for visitors, the station is staggering the move across departments. The public security intelligence and foreign affairs division, the crime prevention and public order division and the security operations division move first on the 19th, followed on the 20th by the women and juvenile affairs division, the traffic management division and the inspection office. The crime prevention division, the women's investigation team, the criminal support team and the missing persons investigation team move on the 21st, and criminal investigation teams 1 through 4 and the violent crime team move on the 22nd. The general affairs division and the accounting division are scheduled to move on the 23rd, with the general service center, the traffic investigation team and the integrated investigation team following on the 24th.
Departments will be unavailable on the day they relocate. Applications to report public assemblies will be accepted at the general service center in the existing temporary building through the 22nd, and must be filed at the new building starting at 9 a.m. on the 23rd.