“To inspire vibrancy, Songdo was designed to have a high-density core,” he says. “Like New York, a mix of high-rise residential and commercial buildings is located at the center of the city, ringing the park. It’s true that this was not a commonly held idea in Korea when we started building Songdo, but we convinced city-planning partners that an amenity like a city center park would increase property values and enhance the quality of life for all Songdo residents.”
Thus, LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) began to be tested in Songdo IBD as part of a pilot program, “but this was begun before you realized that there were some conditions that precluded [us] achieving LEED-ND for the entire footprint,” Murcott says.
Nevertheless, about $35 billion of the master plan has been built out with 65,000 projected permanent residents—mostly Koreans as foreign residents have been slow to move in, with about 1,500 foreign residents in June 2014, according to the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) Authority. A total of about 35 million square feet of residential development (about 22,500 new housing units) is projected.
With about 40 million square feet of office space planned, it’s estimated that about 300,000 commuter and business travelers will come to Songdo by 2020. The approximately 65,000 residents who will eventually live inside the Songdo IBD do not include the roughly 300,000 residents who may live outside the business district, which means greater Songdo may ultimately have a population of well over 300,000—the size of Tampa, Florida, on a fraction of the land mass.
Besides office buildings, about 10 million square feet of retail space, including a retail complex with 150 retail specialty shops, a hypermarket, and multiplex cinema will be included. And 40 percent of Songdo IBD development will be set aside as open space.