사진 확대
Japan’s Roppongi Hills made a new history of urban redevelopment when the city of Tokyo was expanded, with Mori Building, a Japanese real estate developer, redeveloping it into a complex cultural complex. It has established itself as a lifestyle center in harmony with the local community as it was developed with a concept that combines various cultural facilities such as art galleries, hotel movie theaters, and event spaces aimed at cultural city centers, not just commercial development.
In Korea, there are several cases of urban development modeled on Roppongi Hills, and D-Cube City in the Sindorim Station area is one of these cases. D-Cube City, part of the Sindorim station area development project and designed as a leading example of urban regeneration and spatial branding in the southwestern part of Seoul, participated as an urban development advisory and master planning partner to benchmark the success stories of Roppongi Hills.
However, there are factors that differentiate it from Roppongi Hills. First of all, in terms of space size, Roppongi Hills is more diverse and large-scale in residential types and community cultural facilities due to global landmark-level urban development, while D-Cube City is at the level of a regional complex base. Roppongi Hills has a land area of 116,000 square meters and a total floor area of 760,000 square meters, which is three to four times larger than D-Cube City, which has a total floor area of 220,000 square meters. Roppongi Hills and D-Cube City, which aim for high-end housing, also have different residential characteristics.
Above all, Roppongi Hills consists of high-end residences, high-end retail and lifestyle-editing stores, and fine dining to attract customers considering local and floating population characteristics in the process of redeveloping old city centers in the past. However, D-Cube City continued to suffer from sluggish sales despite the opening of D-Cube Department Store in 2011 and Hyundai Department Store’s D-Cube City Store in 2015, matching department stores to the location where it was used as a refinery for Daesung Industrial.
The objective indicator of sales trend is on the decline, but no company will continue its business.
The activation of urban space depends on how spaces with various functions that match regional characteristics are organically linked. The success factor of Roppongi Hills is that it is a lifestyle center that blends with the community and has an emotional connection with the neighborhood.
In order for D-Cube City to become a leading example of urban regeneration in the southwestern part of Seoul, which met the bad news of closing department stores in the shortest period of 15 years, it is necessary to consider fundamentally what direction of spatial restructuring is desirable rather than continuing efforts to repeat past failures.
In the early 2000s, Seongsu-dong, Seoul, was an underdeveloped neighborhood where light industrial factories such as handmade shoes, sewing, and machinery were concentrated, but in just over a decade, it has been transformed into an area where hipster-inspired cafes, galleries, and high-end offices are concentrated. The landmark representing Seongsu-dong today is not a department store or shopping mall, but a high-end complex asset that combines office, luxury residential, and retail mall like Acro Seoul Forest.
Residents of Sindorim should also recognize that their asset value can increase only when the space is activated. A good win-win plan can be prepared if building owners and residents proactively consider how to implement the complexation of buildings suitable for local characteristics.
[CHEN HYUN SUK, former head of SH Corporation’s Urban Research Institute]
AloJapan.com