South Korea President Yoon's Blue House move to reshape Seoul

The decision by South Korea’s incoming leader to move the presidential office away from its current address in the north of Seoul to an underdeveloped neighbourhood best known for its US military presence could significantly reshape the 600-year-old capital politically and economically.

The move would shift the center of power to one of the city's largest districts, where redevelopment has been in fits and starts for two decades due to massive costs and opposition from local residents. It would also take the president out of the central Seoul location that had been the seat of government for six centuries as monumental historical events unfolded around it.

The Blue House complex sits in the northern part of Seoul in the Washington DC-like Jongno district, occupying an area of about 250,000 sq m nestled behind Gyeongbuk Palace. Nearby is the Gwanghwamun Square, the historical locus of mass protests in South Korea including those that brought an end to military dictatorship in the 1980s.

US forces had been stationed there almost continuously since the end of World War II, but are now in the midst of moving out of the capital. Its gentrification was led by cosmetics giant AmorePacific, which opened its new headquarters there in 2017. A large former brothel that had long symbolized Yongsan’s backwardness was razed in 2009.

He also comes into power with the memory of how mass demonstrations in Jongno plagued his two conservative predecessors, including Park Geun-hye, who was ultimately impeached in 2017 over an influence-peddling scandal.

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