In what is the largest master planned city anywhere in the world, the New Songdo City is being developed on the western coast of South Korea, 40 miles from Seoul, on 1,500 acres of landfill that just a few years ago was water. The project is being developed by a private entity, New Songdo International City Development, a joint venture of Gale International, based in New York, and Posco Engineering and Construction of South Korea. It is claimed that Songdo will be the first "new" city in the world designed and planned as an international business district, and it could be to northeast Asia what Shanghai is to southeast Asia.
New Songdo will cost an estimated $30 billion to build, atop the $10 billion that the city of Incheon and the Korean government are spending on infrastructure projects. This will make it easily the largest private development project anywhere in the world. New Songdo is expected to open its doors in August 2009, when the first phase of construction, including the bridge and city center, is completed. The project is expected to wrap up by 2015.
The Master Plan, designed by world-renown architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), contains elements of other landmark cities while creating a new, unique blend - a "Synergy City." Cities like Sydney Venice, Paris, New York and London all have served as blueprints of specialized designs that contributed to Songdo's overall structure. A "Synergy City" is one that contains all of the major functions that are needed to support the needs of those who live and work there.
It will have Venice’s canals, New York’s Central Park, the broad tree-lined boulevards of Paris, the colorful shopping bazaar of Marrakesh, Morocco, the pocket gardens of Savannah, Ga., and an opera house like the one in Sydney, Australia. There will also be a seven-mile bridge that will link New Songdo to Incheon International Airport, off the coast.
Water is recycled city wide, energy produced locally, and the Central Park is planted with low-maintenance native plants and trees. There will also be bicycle paths and pedestrian areas, and 40 percent of the city is reserved for parks and green space. The city's plan includes fifty million square feet of office space - including a landmark 65-story Tower and Convention Center, thirty million square feet of Residential Space, ten million square feet of Retail, five million square feet of Hotel Space and ten million square feet of green space.
The South Korean government has designated the area as a free economic zone, a bilingual city (Korean and English) where foreigners can own land and run schools and hospitals and where companies can get relief from Korean taxes and bureaucracy. It is hoped that Songdo will act as the business hub for multinational companies in Northeast Asia.
Though the financing details of the project are not known, it is likely to be one of the most innovative ever financial structuring. It the latest example of those grandiose development projects that have now become the trademark of East Asia.
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