The former Gwangju Metropolitan City Hall opened in 1995 as a prefabricated temporary structure and has been maintained through repeated expansions since then; however, due to the aging of the facilities, there is now a need for a new downtown-style city hall.

After careful consideration of various options for constructing a new building, including new construction and remodeling, the Gwangju Metropolitan City Nam-gu Office and the Korea Asset Management Corporation have jointly decided to proceed with a project to remodel the former Hani Department Store—which had been abandoned at Baegun Intersection since 1995—into the Gwangju Metropolitan City Nam-gu Comprehensive Government Complex.

The area near Baegun Intersection in Nam-gu, Gwangju, is part of Gwangju’s old downtown. Along with the nine-story Hani Department Store, which had been abandoned at Baegun Intersection for over 15 years, the area had remained underdeveloped and neglected, becoming a region plagued by the problem of abandoned buildings in the city center. The area around Hani Department Store harbored negative factors, such as the unsightly appearance of the abandoned building dampening the overall atmosphere of the city center, and the risk of accidents and the perception of the area as a crime hotspot due to the absence of building management. Consequently, public intervention was necessary from the perspective of urban regeneration (including aesthetic improvement and downtown revitalization).

Through this project, we pursued two solutions: transforming the aging Gwangju Nam-gu District Office into a new downtown-style administrative building, and returning the abandoned Hani Department Store to public ownership as a solution to the problem of the derelict building.