Members of the G3 Donghang Growth Subcommittee speak with merchants during a visit to Heukseok Market. [Seoul Metropolitan Government]
Members of the G3 Donghang Growth Subcommittee speak with merchants during a visit to Heukseok Market. [Seoul Metropolitan Government]

The Seoul Metropolitan Government's G3 Seoul Plan Planning Committee Donghang Growth Subcommittee visited the Heukseok Market alley shopping district near Chung-Ang University on Thursday afternoon to assess conditions in the university commercial area and discuss sustainable ways to revitalize it with merchants, university officials and students.

The G3 Seoul Plan Planning Committee is a public-private partnership body established to identify future strategies and policy priorities for Seoul under the ninth directly elected mayoral term. It translates policy ideas into concrete projects and systems and develops them into actionable plans.

University-area commercial districts have been struggling to find new footing as shifts in lifestyle and consumer habits following the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of online retail and changing economic conditions converge. In response, the Seoul Metropolitan Government selected the Heukseok Market alley shopping district as the site for a field visit to examine how university resources and student ideas could be channeled into partnerships with local businesses.

The Heukseok Market alley shopping district is a mixed commercial zone combining Heukseok Market — a traditional market closely tied to residents' daily lives — with Heukridangil, a stretch of restaurants and bars clustered near Chung-Ang University. The area, where a traditional market and a university nightlife district coexist within a single commercial zone, offers an ideal setting to explore revitalization approaches that bring together universities, students and merchants.

The subcommittee toured Heukseok Market and the Heukridangil area near Chung-Ang University to assess the state of both the traditional market and the university commercial district, then held a roundtable with the merchants' association, university representatives and the student council. Discussions focused not merely on connecting universities and businesses as recipients of support, but on building a public-private-academic cooperation model in which universities, students, merchants and the Seoul Metropolitan Government work together to identify problems in the local commercial district and carry out solutions.

The subcommittee plans to use opinions gathered from merchants, university officials and students during the visit to develop a concrete cooperation model linking university resources with the needs of local businesses.

Lee Jeong-hee, chair of the G3 Planning Committee's Donghang Growth Subcommittee, said the committee would "build a mutually beneficial model in which universities and local commercial districts grow together by connecting the diverse resources universities hold, the ideas of students, and the on-the-ground experience of merchants."


ikson@heraldcorp.com