City solicits proposals for Zone 4 of former Seongdong Detention Center site

Consortium of three firms proposes 'future youth cultural complex'

Open cultural space for residents also planned

A rendering of the youth cultural complex planned for the former Seongdong Detention Center site. [Provided by Seoul Metropolitan Government]
A rendering of the youth cultural complex planned for the former Seongdong Detention Center site. [Provided by Seoul Metropolitan Government]

The site of the former Seongdong Detention Center in Garak-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, is set to be transformed into a cultural complex for young people.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Saturday that it will develop Zone 4 of the former Seongdong Detention Center special planning district — a 4,250-square-meter site in Garak-dong secured through public contribution — into a youth cultural complex where young people can learn, gain hands-on experience, create and connect with their community.

To quickly supply the facilities the area needs — home to a large youth population — through private-sector creativity, the city ran a site-proposal private investment competition, known as a public-private partnership project. It selected a consortium led by Webest Asset Management and two other firms as the preferred proposer for a facility combining digital skills development with cultural, educational, recreational and content-creation programs.

The preferred proposer put forward a "future youth-specialized cultural complex" pairing digital skills development — an area of growing public interest — with youth culture, education, leisure and content creation. The plan aims to help young people explore career paths while organically incorporating open cultural spaces for local residents, laying out a blueprint for community coexistence.

The city will provide policy consulting to the preferred proposer to help refine the proposal, and will move quickly through administrative procedures including a feasibility review to accelerate development of the site.

The city launched the site-proposal private investment program in 2024 — the first of its kind in the country — to speed up development of available public land while improving the quality and diversity of public services. Under the model, the public sector transparently discloses site information upfront, and the private sector submits creative project proposals in response. The approach reduces procedural uncertainty and strengthens both public interest and feasibility from the earliest stages.

The former Seongdong Detention Center relocated to Munjeong Legal Town in 2017, and the roughly 70,000-square-meter site is now being developed into a mixed-use complex combining residential, commercial and cultural functions. The development is divided by use — apartment housing, office facilities, public contribution facilities and roads — with public contribution accounting for about 29.4 percent of the total.

"The site-proposal private investment project is a new public-private cooperation model that leverages the potential of city-owned land to deliver social overhead capital that citizens can feel in their daily lives, more quickly," said Ahn Dae-hee, director of future space planning at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. "Through this competition, we will combine private-sector creativity with the former Seongdong Detention Center site to give young people a space to grow and be active, and to provide local residents with a cultural hub in their everyday lives."


ikson@heraldcorp.com