Biggest Commercial Zone from Namdaemun Market to Myongdong

There is a project to build an underground commercial zone covering Nandamun Market through main shop of Shinsegae department store and head office of Lotte Department store.

On July 16, Lotte group said that it was now pushing for a plan to buy the old Hanil Bank building located between Lotte department store and Metro Midopa in Sogong-dong, Seoul, and made the area around Sogong-dong “Lotte Town.”

To that end, Lotte is going to participate in a public auction by Woori Bank, new name for Hanil Bank, for the old Hanil Bank’s headquarter building coming July 18. The building covers 13thousand pyong(about 43000 square meter) and has 24floors including 2 basement floors. And its minimum auction price is 130billion won.

Lotte said, “ Lotte would be the most qualified owner because the building is effectively next door to head office of Lotte.

Besides the plan, Shinsegae department store is trying to connect the basement floors to underground shopping centor at subway number 4 line which is led to Namdaemun market as part of the plan to start renewing its headquarter at Choongmu-ro first street coming October. Shinsegae is reportedly to have already had meetings behind the scene with underground shops’ owners.

Accordingly, if underground path of 200 m covering from Shinsegae department store to Myondong underground shopping center is connected each other, the path will led to Lotte Town, which means the biggest commercial zone in Korea covering Namdaemun Market, Sogong-dong and Myongdong.

The director of the department for Seoul City Plan, Mun Seung-guk said, “ Efficient use of underground space would bring considerable effect on prevention of centralization effect on major cities and activate commercial zones. Application has yet to be made for the project, but there is no reason to oppose it if somebody applies for it.”

Jin-Hup Song Heon-Jin Lee jinhup@donga.com mungchii@donga.com