An Asian Hub In The Making

IMAGINE a city with Venice’s canals, New York’s Central Park and the broad tree-lined boulevards of Paris. And how about the colorful shopping bazaar of Marrakesh, Morocco; the pocket gardens of Savannah, Ga.; and an opera house like the one in Sydney, Australia? Throw in a world-class hospital, convention center and schools, and a sustainable design, and you might think you’re lost in a SimCity video game.

The 1st World Towers.

But such a real-life metropolis of glass, steel and grass is rising on the western coast of South Korea, 40 miles from Seoul, on 1,500 acres of landfill that just a few years ago was water. It is called New Songdo City, and its backers envision it as a major new financial and business hub for northeast Asia.

The South Korean government has designated the area as a free economic zone, a bilingual city (Korean and English) where foreigners can own land and run schools and hospitals and where companies can get relief from Korean taxes and bureaucracy. It is also building a seven-mile bridge that will link New Songdo to Incheon International Airport, off the coast.

Ambitious new cities have been popping up across Asia and the Middle East. But New Songdo City is among the largest master-planned projects that is privately owned. The project is being developed by New Songdo International City Development, a joint venture of Gale International, based in New York, and Posco Engineering and Construction of South Korea.

Other high-profile Korean development projects — from the 1988 Olympics to the 2002 World Cup and the construction of the airport — have all been national projects. “As an international company, our role is to partner with Korean government and industry to create an international environment,” said Stanley C. Gale, the chairman and a managing partner at Gale International.

New Songdo will cost an estimated $30 billion to build, atop the $10 billion that the city of Incheon and the Korean government are spending on infrastructure projects. Every six months, $1 billion in construction is scheduled to begin. Morgan Stanley Real Estate is investing $350 million, and in November, Gale lined up $2.7 billion in financing led by Shinhan Bank.

New Songdo is expected to open its doors in August 2009, when the first phase of construction, including the bridge and city center, is completed. The project is expected to wrap up by 2015.

For Mr. Gale and John B. Hynes III, Gale International’s chief executive and a managing partner, Songdo has been a fascinating journey. In 2001, Mr. Hynes, who had recently opened the Boston office for Gale, received an unsolicited phone call from a consultant from Posco: the South Korean government was looking for a developer to lead the Songdo project, and was he interested? Mr. Hynes was, even though he had never been to Asia, and at the time, Gale International had not done any development projects overseas.

When Gale International arrived for negotiations, the area planned for building was still underwater. But by the end of 2001, they had signed a deal with Posco and the city of Incheon.

It’s not every day, of course, that a company has an opportunity to design a city from scratch, especially in such a strategic location. Sandwiched between China and Japan, and within a three-hour plane ride of one-third of the world’s population, by Mr. Gale’s calculations, New Songdo has the potential to attract Asians and other international workers who want to live in a modern environment.

“Songdo could be to northeast Asia what Shanghai is to southeast Asia,” said Mr. Gale, from his offices on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, overlooking the 843-acre Central Park, which inspired New Songdo’s park.

Gale hired the architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, with offices in New York and London, to help create the master plan. James von Klemperer, a principal at the firm, called Songdo “an architect’s dream.” The guiding design principles were to create a modern, environmentally designed city with mixed-use development and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.

But there were challenges to overcome. Most cities evolve over time, building by building, overlaying the new with the old — and it is that organic growth that gives each city its vitality and character. So one concern for the architectural team, Mr. von Klemperer said, was ensuring that New Songdo would not be a sterile planned community. “How do you design something that feels like a real city center, with its own spirit, character and icons?” he asked.

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