Seoul City to Proceed with Demolition of Sewoon Sangga Elevated Walkway... Public Hearing on 23rd

by Kim Hye Min

Pubilshed 12 Sep.2024 13:45(KST)

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is pushing for the demolition of the Sewoon Arcade elevated walkway, which was constructed at a cost of 110.9 billion won during Mayor Park Won-soon's administration.

Sewoon Sangga Elevated Walkway

On the 12th, Seoul announced that it will hold a public hearing on the "Amendment Plan for the Urban Regeneration Activation Plan in the Sewoon Arcade Area" at 4 p.m. on the 23rd in the small auditorium of the Jung-gu Residents' Hall.

The public hearing aims to gather citizens' opinions on demolishing certain sections of the elevated walkway in the Sewoon Arcade area and improving the pedestrian environment at ground level.

The walkway is a 1-kilometer-long bridge connecting the third floors of seven arcades, including Sewoon Arcade, Cheonggye Arcade, and Jinyang Arcade. It was promoted in 2016 as part of an urban regeneration project to preserve the Sewoon Arcade area and was fully opened in 2022. The project cost 110.9 billion won.

The city explained the demolition background by stating that a survey of daily pedestrian traffic on the elevated walkway showed actual usage was only about 11% of the originally predicted volume. The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out last month in its audit results that "the elevated walkway did not contribute to the regeneration of the Sewoon Arcade area through increased pedestrian traffic, which was the original purpose of the project."

The city plans to first demolish the steel-structured pedestrian bridge section about 250 meters long located between Sampung Arcade and PJ Hotel. Pedestrian traffic in this section was found to be only 6.7% of the predicted volume.

The remaining sections of the elevated walkway connected to existing buildings such as Sewoon Arcade will be gradually demolished in connection with the arcade group park project under the Sewoon District Redevelopment Promotion Plan and transformed into parks.

Starting with this public hearing, after hearing opinions from the city council and related reviews, the demolition and pedestrian environment improvement project for the relevant sections is expected to be implemented as early as the first half of next year.

Meanwhile, the Sewoon Arcade area was designated as an urban regeneration activation area on December 10, 2015. The city established an urban regeneration activation plan in 2017 and has been promoting nine regeneration projects. This amendment plan includes completion measures for these projects as most of the urban regeneration projects in the Sewoon Arcade area are nearing completion.