Pop star Justin Bieber made a surprise visit to South Korea on Friday and shared photos of the Seoul cityscape on social media — including a shot of a large apartment construction site in Seocho-gu that has drawn widespread attention.
Bieber posted the photos on his SNS accounts with the caption "Made it to Seoul."
The seven-photo set included scenes from an airport immigration hall and views of the city shot through a car window. One image of a large-scale apartment construction site stood out among them.
The site is The H Banpo 124, a reconstruction project replacing the first, second and fourth sections of the Banpo Jugong 1 complex in Seocho-gu. Hyundai Engineering & Construction (Hyundai E&C) is the contractor. The development will comprise 50 buildings rising up to 35 above-ground floors over five below-ground floors, for a total of 5,007 units.
Of those, 1,801 units have been designated for general pre-sale — 930 through special supply and 871 through general supply.
According to the institutional-recommendation special supply notice, the official resident recruitment announcement is set for Tuesday. Special supply subscriptions open Nov. 7, followed by first-priority general supply subscriptions on Nov. 8. Winners are scheduled to be announced Nov. 16.
The pre-sale price has not been finalized, but analysts estimate that an 84-square-meter unit will be priced at around 3 billion won ($2.27 million), factoring in rising construction costs.
Compared with a recent transaction in which an 84-square-meter unit at the nearby Raemian One Bailey sold for 7.15 billion won in May, some observers say the project could amount to a "3-billion-won lottery" for buyers.
The timing added to the buzz: the day Bieber posted his photos, the institutional-recommendation special supply notice for The H Banpo 124 was also published, drawing even more attention from Korean internet users.
Commenters responded with a mix of humor, writing things like "Did he come to scout Banpo?", "How did he know the subscription was opening?" and "He probably came to enroll his son in an English-language kindergarten."
Hyundai E&C also reposted Bieber's upload to its official SNS account, sharing it with its own followers. A repost is a feature that allows users to reshare another person's content to their own account.
Some speculated that Bieber photographed the site simply because large-scale apartment construction of that kind is rarely seen in the United States.
Bieber arrived at Incheon International Airport in the early hours of Friday with his wife, Hailey Bieber. It was his first visit to South Korea in about 13 years, since his debut performance here in 2013.
The trip coincided with the opening of a pop-up store in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, for Skylark, the fashion and lifestyle brand he launched.
bbo@heraldcorp.com
