Plans under way for new SNU branch in Siheung (JoongAng Daily)
Createdd 2015-05-07 Hit 4101
Contents
February 12, 2010 (JoongAng Daily)
Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo, left; SNU President Lee Jang-moo, center; and Siheung Mayor Kim Yun-sik sign a memorandum of understanding for a plan to build a SNU campus in Siheung, at the SNU campus in the Gwanak District, southern Seoul, on Tuesday. Provided by SNU
Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, Gyeonggi Province and Siheung city government in Gyeonggi agreed to build a “global campus” in the city of Siheung with a medical complex on site to lure foreign patients, a project that is expected to breathe new life into the area.
SNU President Lee Jang-moo, Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo and Siheung Mayor Kim Yun-sik signed a memorandum of understanding at SNU, which is located in Gwanak District, southern Seoul, on Tuesday.
The university will set up a detailed construction plan for Kunja District, which is a 20-minute drive from Incheon International Airport on Yeongjong Island. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Gyeonggi and Siheung will provide administrative assistance.
The three parties hope to open the campus in March 2014.
The campus is slated to cover 826,467 square meters (8,896,016 square feet) within the 4,906,190-square-meter area designated as the Kunja District. Along with several lecture halls and dormitories, the campus will house a medical complex that includes a research hospital, a medical training assistance center and a research center for both dentistry and clinical pharmacology.
The remainder of the land will be used for apartment buildings, with space for 11,000 units, and other facilites.
The SNU campus in Siheung will be the nation’s first “open campus,” meaning there will be no fences or walls around the school. The school will offer undergraduate liberal arts courses and some graduate school courses.
Gyeonggi expects that some 10,000 people, including some 3,200 students and about 1,000 patients, will flow into the area once construction is complete, and hopes the new project will help boost the area’s economy.
Siheung has tried to have the campus built since 2007. To move the project forward, it organized a joint working-level group for the project in conjunction with SNU last June.
By Chung Young-jin [smartpower@joongang.co.kr]
