Hwaseong Songsan City international theme park eyed anew

Gyeonggi Province, Hwaseong City, and state-run K-Water Corp. will push for a project to construct Songsan Green City international theme park in Hwaseong, which was effectively suspended. The Songsan Green City international theme park project calls for the construction of a world-class theme park in land extending 4,200,146 sq. meters to the east of Songsan Green City in Hwaseong.

According to the Gyeonggi provincial government and Hwaseong City on Monday, Governor Nam Kyung-pil, Hwaseong Mayor Chae In-seok, and K-Water President Choi Kye-woon recently exchanged an "agreement between state organizations to successfully attract an international theme park."

Earlier in 2007, Gyeonggi Province, Hwaseong City and K-Water, in collaboration with USKR Consortium comprised of nine companies including POSCO E&C and Korea Investment & Securities, sought to attract Universal City of the U.S., but they failed to narrow differences over land price and payment method among others. However, as the "Revision bill to the act on industrial land use and development" was approved by the National Assembly in April, new momentum to pursue the project has been gathered. Previously, land was to be supplied based on a competitive bid of prices irrespective of project plans, but land supply method has been changed this time to allow for the introduction of a public offering that can take into account the nature of projects.

Additionally, it has become possible to supply land in the original form rather than the method to supply land after constructing basic infrastructure facilities. As a result, the three organizations are set to positively consider conditions for land supply and various incentives meant to help improve the economic viability of envisaged projects within the legal boundary. Hence, diverse methods including payment of land price in installments, land lease, or investment will likely be discussed and reviewed. The organizations also plan to form a working-level consultative body and select a preferred negotiating partner by year’s end.

“Universal City is one of theme parks that are most suitable for Green City, and the U.S. headquarters of the theme park remains committed to the project,” said a source at the Gyeonggi provincial government. “If a theme park is constructed, it will become a tourism hotspot that will bring about direct employment of 10,000 people, and more than 15 million tourists from Korea and overseas.”