Daegu City Council Member Jilkyun Jung: "Daegu Athletics Promotion Center Built with 72.5 Billion Won Records Annual Deficit of 1 Billion Won"... Poor Operation, Utilization Rate Only 30%

Jilkyun Jung, a member of the Daegu City Council (People Power Party, Suseong-gu District 1), will call for measures to revitalize the Daegu Athletics Promotion Center through a five-minute free speech at the second plenary session of the 317th regular session to be held on June 25.

The Daegu Athletics Promotion Center is a facility built by the city of Daegu in conjunction with hosting the 2011 Daegu World Championships in Athletics. A total budget of 72.5 billion won was invested, and in 2013 it was completed as the first indoor athletics stadium in South Korea.

Jilkyun Jung Daegu City Councilor

However, during construction, the center failed to meet the specifications for an indoor warm-up area, which resulted in not receiving certification from World Athletics. In response, the city of Daegu urgently constructed a Citizen Sports Center near the athletics center, investing an additional 9.8 billion won.

Jung pointed out, "Despite the many twists and turns leading to its completion, the Athletics Promotion Center should now be fully utilized as a space for citizens, but its current operation is very inadequate. Last year, there were only 66 rental cases, and the annual utilization rate did not exceed 30%."

He further added, "As a result, the Athletics Promotion Center has been recording an annual deficit of more than 1 billion won."

Jung also emphasized, "The city of Daegu must now recognize the seriousness of the problem and swiftly establish effective measures so that the Athletics Promotion Center can fulfill its intended function." He also proposed various utilization plans through functional transformation, such as expanding insufficient indoor sports facilities and using the center as a venue for cultural and artistic performances.

First, he suggested actively using the Athletics Promotion Center as a community sports hub for the health of citizens. He explained, "If the Athletics Promotion Center is renovated into a multipurpose sports space, enabling various indoor sports, especially with a focus on badminton courts, it would not only address the imbalance in sports infrastructure?since Daegu is the only metropolitan city without a dedicated indoor badminton court?but also enhance the justification and value of the center at a time when the aging Daegu Indoor Gymnasium is raising calls for the construction of a second indoor gymnasium."

He also proposed strengthening the function of the Athletics Promotion Center as a cultural and artistic performance venue. "The Athletics Promotion Center already has 5,000 indoor seats, making it an optimal space for hosting large-scale performances and cultural events. Just as the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Seoul was remodeled and transformed into KSPO DOME, becoming a hub for cultural performances, the Athletics Promotion Center can also be reborn as a complex cultural space if certain facilities are supplemented," he stressed.

Jilkyun Jung concluded, "It is no longer acceptable for the Athletics Promotion Center, a valuable asset of Daegu, to remain neglected as it is. I urge the city of Daegu to take proactive steps so that the Athletics Promotion Center can be reborn as a multipurpose complex space that citizens can use in various ways and that can also generate greater economic benefits."