Incheon City, Urban Corporation, and Port Corporation Selected as Priority Negotiators for Redevelopment of Inner Port Piers 1 and 8

Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Begins Full-Scale Negotiations... Construction to Start by End of Next Year
Creating a 429,000㎡ Marine Culture Urban Space by 2028

Incheon City, together with Incheon Port Authority (IPA) and Incheon Urban Corporation (iH), has been selected as the preferred negotiation partner for the redevelopment of Incheon Inner Port Piers 1 and 8, and has begun formal negotiations with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

The city announced on the 21st that the consortium formed with IPA and iH submitted a redevelopment proposal for Inner Port Piers 1 and 8 to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries last December, which passed feasibility reviews and third-party proposal competitions, leading to their selection as the preferred negotiation partner.

Accordingly, the Incheon City consortium plans to proceed with negotiations with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, aiming to sign an implementation agreement within this year after supplementing the business plan and negotiating implementation conditions. Once finally designated as the project operator, construction is scheduled to begin by the end of next year and the redevelopment is planned to be completed by 2028.

Location map of Incheon Inner Port 1st and 8th Wharf Redevelopment Project [Provided by Incheon City]

The Inner Port Piers 1 and 8 redevelopment project is a leading project of the 8th term of the elected government’s core pledge, the 'Jemulpo Renaissance (Incheon Old Downtown Revival Project)'. The plan is to invest a total of 590.6 billion KRW by 2028 to redevelop 429,000㎡ in the Bukseong-dong and Hang-dong areas of Jung-gu, Incheon, transforming it into a marine cultural urban space.

Incheon Inner Port, opened in 1974, has seen a decline in cargo volume as other ports in Incheon, such as the New Port and North Port, have been actively developed. Moreover, residents around the Inner Port have been complaining for over 30 years about noise and dust damage caused by port logistics facilities, raising a consistent need for adjusting the port’s functions and redeveloping the surrounding old downtown area as a unified space.

Initially, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries called for project operators for the redevelopment of Inner Port Piers 1 and 8 in 2015 and 2016, but both attempts failed. Later, at the end of 2016, Incheon City, IPA, and Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) signed an agreement to promote the project through public development, seemingly accelerating progress, but LH withdrew in 2019, causing difficulties in advancing the project.

Accordingly, Incheon City decided to promote the Inner Port redevelopment in connection with the Jemulpo Renaissance and signed a basic business agreement for the redevelopment of Inner Port Piers 1 and 8 with IPA and iH in March last year.

An Incheon City official stated, "The redevelopment of Incheon Inner Port is the first public port redevelopment project led by a local government in Korea, and with the selection as the preferred negotiation partner, we have begun to actively pursue this long-awaited project," adding, "We will push forward with speed to make it a marine cultural space representing the Jemulpo Renaissance."