A high tech and post modern city called Songdo International Business District has been built on an artificial island in the Yellow Sea by the South Korea since 2003. It is invested tens of billions of dollars and considered as the world’s most exciting real estate project.
The Songdo International Business District features the wide boulevards of Paris, a modern canal system inspired by Venice, a 100-acre Central Park reminiscent of New York City, convention center architecture redolent of the famed Sydney Opera House and a system of pocket parks similar to those in Savannah.
Particularly, the city is the first city-sized green building project with 40% green space and its transportation infrastructure supports bicycling and walking. It is connected to Incheon International Airport by a seven-mile-long Incheon Grand Bridge, one of the world’s longest suspension bridges.
Songdo has 50 million square feet of office space including the 68-story Northeast Asia Trade Tower
The real estate project is situated on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land, almost twice the size of New York’s Central Park
The city is the largest private real estate venture in history
Designed by the New York office of Kohn Pedersen Fox, the Songdo International Business District will consist of the Northeast Asia Trade Tower, the Incheon Tower, schools, hospitals, apartments, office buildings and cultural amenities, etc. Its infrastructure development, funding and labor come from the city of Incheon.
The Northeast Asia Trade Tower is the tallest building in South Korea
The developers plan to finish Songdo by 2015
Songdo's Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea, Site of the 2010 and 2011 PGA Championships
Songdo is connected to Incheon International Airport by the seven-mile-long Incheon Grand Bridge
According to developers Gale International, about 22,000 of the expected 65,000 permanent residents have already moved into the city, where TelePresence is provided in every home, office, school and hospital. After its completion, the city will house 80,000 apartments, 50,000,000 square feet (4,600,000 m2) of office space and 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m2) of retail space.
The entire city is built based on Korean and international green building standards
Convensia Convention Center is already certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
The city will support a daytime population of 300,000 workers and students
Bicycling and walking will be encouraged by the design of the city
The entire project will cost about $35 billion dollars, equivalent to Costa Rica's 2010 GDP
