By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Policymakers have all but approved a controversial plan by Lotte Group to build a 112-story building in southeastern Seoul, despite concerns that the trophy skyscraper would be too close to a military airbase.
The decision was made after a meeting between ministers and business leaders in Cheong Wa Dae Thursday and rewards 14 years of persistence by Lotte chairman Shin Kyuk-ho, who has zealously pursued becoming the owner of the country’s tallest building since first approached with the idea in 1994.
President Lee Myung-bak has been supportive of Lotte’s plans since his days as Seoul Mayor. However, the Air Force and Defense Ministry blocked construction, claiming that the 555-meter tall building could pose a serious safety threat to military aircraft flying in and out of Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, due to its close location to flight paths.
However, with Lee calling the shots from the Blue House, military authorities are now saying they could be more flexible.
``There have been requests from the business sector to allow the building of the `Second Lotte World,’’’ said Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-gwan.
``We are considering those demands and a conclusion will be reached at the year’s end,’’ he said.
A Defense Ministry spokesman said the ministry is considering ways to prevent the new building from becoming a threat to ``national security and air safety,’’ which may include adjusting the direction of the airport runway. Relocation of the airport, however, would not be considered.
``We are considering every possibility in regard of the building’s effect to the airport and other military facilities, but nothing has been decided yet,’’ said Won Tae-jae, a ministry spokesman.
``If a conclusion is reached that the runway of the airport should be rebuilt, Lotte should be ready to pay for it as that is not going to come from our budget,’’ he said.
Military officials had previously demanded Lotte reduce the height of the building to a level below 200 meters. Pilots using the Seoul Airport are required to keep an altitude of at least 203 meters on instrumental flights, or when they control their planes solely relying on data from instruments due to clouds and other obstacles limiting visibility in the cockpit.
So in an absolute worst-case scenario, military officials claim, a pilot could crash right into the middle of Lotte’s 500-meter plus building on a cloudy day. They also pointed out that planes need to descend to a level of about 280 meters above the new building’s site in order to land at the Airport.
However, Lotte officials insisted the worries are exaggerated, saying the new building’s location is outside of the flight safety zone reserved by current law.
Now with military authorities changing their language, singing along with the Lee government’s drive for deregulation, Lotte is likely to have its dream building, although the company would be reluctant to fully finance the rebuilding of Seoul Airport’s runway.
The 112-story building is part of Lotte’s 1 trillion won project to construct its new amusement park, right next to the current Lotte World, in a 87,400-square-meters site it bought in 1988.
Shin is clearly obsessed with size, but a 112-story building doesn’t’ sound so cool 14 years later. There are already plans for a 160-story, 620-meter building in Yongsan, downtown Seoul, while another 130-story building in Sangamdong is about to enter construction, meaning that the new Lotte building would never be called the country’s tallest, a title that Shin had been religiously attached to.
There are also worries that Lotte’s new building could also cause already-expensive house prices in Jamsil to skyrocket, making the area a target for speculation.