Relocation or adjustment of pres. office urged . JANUARY 18, 2013 02:21. . At 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 11, President Lee Myung-bak left the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae to work at his second office inside an adjacent building for the presidential secretariat.

After his inauguration five years ago, President Lee chaired a meeting with senior secretaries every Monday at his office in the main building. Since October last year, however, he has held breakfast meetings with them at the building for the secretariat every Friday, saying he wanted to leave the main building and have free discussions over breakfast. A senior secretary said the Friday meetings are more productive than those held Mondays, with the presidential staff more freely expressing their opinions.

In his last year in office, the late former President Roh Moo-hyun spent more time at the building for the secretariat than at his office in the main building. "Politically isolated after he left the ruling Uri Party in February 2007, President Roh tried to reinvigorate himself by working with his aides at the secretariat building," one of his staff members recalled.

These cases clearly show the problematic structure of Cheong Wa Dae, where the president`s office is about 500 meters away from the secretariat building. The Cheong Wa Dae space is said to hamper frequent communication between the president and his aides in handling an endless influx of issues about state affairs.

The main Cheong Wa Dae building was modeled in 1991 after Geunjeongjeon, which is the main hall of Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul. Since the Kim Young-sam administration that was launched in 1993, successive administrations were aware of the problems in the structure and attempted to remodel it. They failed, however, to persuade the National Assembly to approve the multi-million-dollar budget for renovation or lost the political energy to push for the project due to scandals involving the relatives of presidents or close aides.

President Lee also considered rearranging the space soon after taking office five years ago, but gave up due to anti-U.S. beef protests in May 2008.

The 20-year project has been handed over to President-elect Park Geun-hye. Many urge the incoming president to rearrange the presidential office into a communication-oriented structure befitting governance in the 21st century.

In September last year, Ahn Dae-hee, then chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party`s political reform committee, proposed that the presidential office be relocated, to which Park showed a positive response. She is considering creating a "small Cheong Wa Dae," while seeking to enlarge the government. In a briefing to the presidential transition committee Thursday, The Office of President also made an official proposal that the space be rearranged to enhance work efficiency.

Experts say the Park administration should remodel Cheong Wa Dae this year by drawing up a blueprint based on public consensus early in its term. "The existing Cheong Wa Dae structure reflects too much consideration of protocols. So the new administration should begin to remodel Cheong Wa Dae to ensure more efficient state management," said Hahm Seong-deuk, a public administration professor at Korea University.