Hopes High on Suwon I’Park Project

Chmn. Chung calls the project part of urban town construction with all kinds of amenities including theme shopping mall

Chairman Chung Mong-kyu of Hyundai Development Co. said the I’Park apartment complex being built in Suwon will be as good as its sister apartment complexes in a number of locales throughout Korea including one in Haeundae in Busan and the other in Apgujong in southern Seoul.
During a recent interview at the Park Hyatt Hotel in southern Seoul, the chairman said he is especially proud of the company’s success in the I’Park apartment complexes built around the country and is very confident that the Suwon I’Park would also bring tremendous success to the company and to its owners when it is completed and sold off.
For one, the I’Park complex in Suwon is part of the mini-urban town construction project including residential houses, a theme shopping mall, and other convenience facilities, he said, with residential facilities totaling 6,500 units to be built at a cost of some 3 trillion won with Hyundai Development taking charge of the project from start to finish.
The land for the project in the southern part of Suwon will cost around 700 billion won and the company will have to undertake restoration work of and build grass fields along two streams, each about 2.5 km long, that flow through the complex, Chung said. A couple of renowned foreign designers will be hired to design the entire complex and the landscaping around the complex.
The residential apartments and houses will be sold to the public after a model house is opened for public viewing soon, the chairman said.
Chairman Chung, in an interview with a local daily, said he sees the second half housing business continue to be slow. The Seoul area will have a better time compared to other regions where the housing construction business has been in the doldrums for a long time. Some said the prices of apartments in the Seoul area rose, but the chairman thought that only higher prices are being quoted, with no real transactions taking place. He said the land for the Haeundae I’Park was bought in 2000 and it took some eight or nine years to break ground for the I’Park complex in the beach side city, which shows that Hyundai Development is financially strong enough that it can afford to delay its construction projects so long. Chairman Chung said his company looks forward to taking part in the four-rivers restoration project, although the company basically is an apartment builder, having been born out of the merger of Halla Construction and Korea Urban Development in 1977.
He said he would like to point out that there are a lot of misunderstandings on BTL-type of civilian projects. The privately-financed projects take less time to complete than government projects. For example, the Seoul-Chuncheon Expressway, in which Hyundai Development took part, took only five years from designing and construction to completion. Government projects usually take from 10 to 15 years to be completed, Chung said. Chung said he doesn’t think the completion period is too short for the four-rivers project as construction companies have a lot of room for more projects. He said to look at Bundang City as an example, which had some people worried that the city was built in too short a time, spurning concerns that it may have some areas with shoddy construction work. But the city has had no problems, although some 20 years have passed since it was opened to public.
The four-rivers project might have some areas with poor workmanship, he said, but it will be all right as the job will be done as completely as those construction companies are capable.
He said it will take quite some time for his company to catch up with the likes of Hyundai, GS and Daelim in the area of overseas construction project undertaking. It will take some time for the company to get over a number of big problems such as learning the pertinent regulations and languages, most of all. The immediate problems that the company is faced with are the current global economic crisis and related problems, which need one or two years to put them behind, Chung said. He also said he did not have many problems when the company switched to construction from automaking when he and his late father Se-young took over Hyundai Development a decade ago. The biggest change is the change in his habit of looking around when he walks the streets in towns. When he was with Hyundai Motor, he used to look at sides of cars and headlights, but now he looks at the shapes of building and street scenes.
People think about a certain car they have or new models when they are first introduced to the market, but they soon forget about them. But thoughts about a new building go on and on, many for 50 years and even for a century, he said. nw