By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
The multi-billion-dollar construction of Songdo International Business District (IBD), the country's first work-live-and-play city designed to attract foreigners and multinational firms, is stuck in a quagmire as the South Korean government's notorious red tape and infrastructure hurdles keep dragging down the dream project from moving forward.
The $35-billion city rising from reclaimed mud, roughly seven times bigger than the size of Yeouido off the west coast in Incheon, is the centerpiece of the first government-endorsed free economic zone, but a sudden regulatory flip-flop is now impeding the IBD's 68-story landmark tower from going up.
Construction for the Northeast Asia Trade Tower (NEATT), which is slated to become South Korea's tallest, has stopped after key investors including Morgan Stanley, Kookmin and Woori banks recently pulled out, fearing that the new rules would easily deteriorate profitability.
Their concern is that the government's revised policy regulating condominium sales would significantly dampen buyer interest for the tower's top 30 floors, an outcome neither investors nor the project developers expected.
"Applying a new law to a building that broke ground three years ago is frustrating,'' says a spokesman of Gale International, a U.S.-based firm co-developing IBD in a 70:30 joint venture with the construction unit of steel maker POSCO.
The mixed-use tower offering office space, retail and residential facilities is currently 68 percent constructed, with the final completion date scheduled for March 2010.
Despite the progress, authorities claim that the abrupt decision was unavoidable in order to prevent a rush of speculators from taking advantage of regulatory loopholes that previously exempted condo buyers from the country's complex property regulations.
The high oversubscription rates of its residential properties so far demonstrate the new city's popularity among investors who find the international school, giant park, convention center and golf course designed Jack Nicklaus housed in the IBD attractive.
Following the regulatory change, Gale and POSCO have been pushing to re-label the purpose of the NEATT's upper floors to make it easier to sell the units, but Incheon officials are mulling over the decision due to possible opposition from local builders.
"It's not an easy decision to make because a hasty move can trigger all sorts of complaints that the IBD is being given too many exceptions," said an official of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority (IFEZ), who asked not to be named.
IFEZ is the master planner of the three FEZs in Incheon, which covers three designated districts - Songdo, Cheongna and Yeongjong. Among the three, Songdo, 35 kilometers southwest of Seoul, has garnered the most attention.
Exemplifying NEATT's stalemated construction, foreign real estate experts point out that South Korea's long-running regulatory traps continue to hamper investment in the country, which aims to be the hub of Northeast Asia.
"The Songdo project has been repeatedly highlighted in the foreign media as a remarkable development, but there is so much red tape that developers have to overcome to get work done," said one official of a foreign business lobbying group, who requested anonymity.
Chris Sausser, executive vice president of Gale, told The Korea Times that he hopes various procedures were done in a more transparent fashion.
"Songdo needs to be successful not just for us," he said. "South Korea needs to show the world that a U.S. company or any company in the world can come here and not have a lot of obstacles" in doing business.
Referring to Songdo IBD, which is nearly 40 percent completed, Sauccer stressed, "If we end up having to stop, it's going to be a major blow."