Yongsan Park, now a vacant area set to become a public park by 2027 will be expanded to hold a total of 3 million square meters of land by absorbing nearby sites that have been used by the military.

According to the revised plan for establishment of Yongsan Park released by the Land Ministry on Monday, the site for Yongsan Park has expanded by 570,000 square meters, or 23.5 percent, compared to the 2014 plan. The plan to turn the USFK’s Yongsan Garrison into a national park was first created in 2011.

Some 95,000 square meters of land used for Defense Acquisition Program Administration office and 45,000 square meters of land that housed military apartments will be part of the park. The new space will add an ecological space inside the park. But buildings with historical and artistic value will be preserved for later use for cultural programs, the ministry said.

While the 84,000-square-meter US military hotel Dragon Hill Lodge located in the middle of the Yongsan garrison and a 57,000-square-meter heliport were still excluded from the park site, the total land area for Yongsan Park is expected to increase by 30,000 square meters as an accommodation facility for US Embassy employees will be established outside the park.

The revised plan also showed that based on suggestions from Seoul citizens, the park will be open to public around the clock and use smart technologies like big data and IoT. 

The ministry said the establishment of the park will cost some 2.1 trillion won ($1.7 billion), about 1.78 times higher than the previous plan released in 2014. 

Meanwhile, the opening of the Yongsan Park remains undecided. 

It was initially planned to have a 2027 opening when the US Army was scheduled to return the site by 2016. But with the relocation to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek being delayed, the ministry said it has changed the time frame to seven years after the US Army’s move out is completed. 

That seven-year period includes doing environmental studies on oil spills and other possible incidents of contamination at the army site, which have sparked public concerns in recent years. 

Last December, 2.9 million square meters of land which had been used as a sports field and softball stadium was returned to the South Korean government. But this still accounts to just 2 percent of the total land to be returned. 

By early next year, the US and South Korea have agreed to return one fourth of the remaining site, some 500,000 square meters of land inside Yongsan Garrision’s Southpost area where schools, sports fields and accommodation facilities for officers were set up. This equals to some 27 percent of the land to be returned to the country. 

Authorities said that the reason why the return takes time is because the ROK-US Combined Forces Command has not moved out yet and still uses major facilities such as telecommunication infrastructure inside Yongsan Garrison. The CFC said that it would complete the relocation to Camp Humphreys during the first half of next year. 

In 2017, the relocation of 26 US army forces scattered across in Korea to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, kicked off with the Eighth Army moving there. The United States Forces Korea headquarters moved out from Yongsan in 2018. 

The Korean government paid 91 percent of the total of 12 trillion won it cost to build infrastructure in Camp Humphreys.