New bridge opens way for Korean high-tech city
The opening of South Korea's longest bridge last month ticks the transport box for a $US35 billion ($A37.5 billion) new city being built near the country's Incheon International Airport.
The A$1.8 billion Incheon Grand Bridge, a 12.3 km six-lane toll bridge in which Australia's Macquarie Group has a significant stake, puts the airport just a 10-minute drive from Songdo International Business District (IBD), a high-tech residential and commercial development about 60km west of the South Korean capital, Seoul.
Songdo IBD is claimed to be the world's largest private property development yet undertaken, bigger than the artificial islands, casinos and resort parks of Dubai, Macau or Singapore.
Project promoter Stanley C. Gale, chairman of US-based developer Gale International, told The Australian that completion of the Incheon bridge positions South Korea and Songdo as "the commercial epicenter of Northeast Asia." Gale said the Incheon-Songdo "aerotropolis" was three and a half hours flying time from a third of the world's population, and gave quick access to such key markets as China, Japan and Russia.
According to Gale, about 20,000 construction workers are on the Songdo site daily and the project has reached critical mass, with 40 per cent completed or under way. "That is a significant differentiator from other ‘new city' developments being touted around the world," Gale said.
Gale's partner in Songdo is POSCO Engineering & Construction, part of South Korean steel giant POSCO.
Phase one of Songdo IBD was officially opened on August 7, and already has about 8,000 residents and scores of businesses up and running. About US$10 billion (A$10.7 billion) worth of construction, covering roads, canals, parkland and 100 buildings, is under way or completed on a 600-hectare site reclaimed from the Yellow Sea, not far from where the Incheon landings devised by General Douglas MacArthur took place during the Korean War in September 1950.
The whole Songdo project is due for completion by 2015 at a total cost of about US$35 billion. Incheon City and the South Korean Government have committed another US$10 billion in infrastructure, including highways and a subway link.
Gale says the opening of the bridge to traffic last month is going to have "a tremendous and hugely positive impact" on the Songdo project's economic viability. He cites the ability of a Songdo-based executive to drive to the airport in 10 minutes and then take a flight of 80 minutes to Shanghai or 90 minutes to Tokyo as "incredibly appealing."
The cable-stayed bridge, which took more than four years to build and is the fifth longest of its type in the world, cuts the driving time between downtown Incheon and the airport by about 30 minutes. The bridge toll is 5500 won (about A$5) for cars.
Macquarie Korea Infrastructure Fund has a 41 per cent stake in Incheon Bridge Co. (IBC) through its special purpose company, Private Infrastructure Investment Korea. IBC holds the concession to operate and maintain the bridge for the next 30 years.
According to Macquarie, MKIF's total investment in the project through equity and loans is 163.9 billion won (about A$153 million). UK-based civil engineering firm and project manager AMEC has a 23 per cent stake in IBC, while other shareholders are Korean banks Kookmin and Industrial Bank of Korea, each with 15 per cent, and Incheon City with 6 per cent. Macquarie also has a 25 per cent stake in an adjacent toll road, the Incheon International Airport Expressway.
Incheon, one of only three airports in the world to hold a five-star rating from airport reviewer Skytrax - the others are Hong Kong and Singapore - was opened in 2001 on an island just offshore from Incheon city. Though it is one of the busiest passenger and cargo airports in the world, until now it had only one bridge connecting it to the mainland.
With key infrastructure now in place, Songdo is considered a strong contender to be host city for the G-20 summit meeting to be held in South Korea in November 2010. A convention centre, named Convensia, is already operating, and the first corporate towers, including the 65-storey Northeast Asia Trade Tower -- South Korea's tallest building - are due for completion in early 2010.
Eventually, Songdo will have more than 4 million square metres (sqm) of office space, 2.8 million sqm of residential space, 920,000 sqm of retail, 460,000 sqm of hotel space and 920,000 sqm of public space. Cultural and leisure facilities include the convention centre, an art museum, golf club, central park and an international preparatory school.
According to Gale, Songdo will be "an environmental standout" and has the goal of being the greenest, most sustainable city in the world. But the project has drawn criticism from environmentalists, who say reclamation of the tidal flats on which Songdo has been built destroys an important habitat for several species of gulls and egrets.