Asia's leading Lifestyle Hotelplex Seoul Dragon City Project

Kyung-Back Park Associate Director
- SeobuT&D Co. Ltd., Yongsan Hotel CM
- kppak@hmglobal.com

Seoul Dragon City is Korea’s first hotelplex that includes 4 AccorHotels brands (Grand Mercure, Novotel Suite, Novotel, Ibis Style) that range from luxury to economy class. There are a total of 11 restaurants and bars, convention facilities which holds up to 4,900 customers, state of the art media facilities, 17 meeting rooms, 2 grand ballrooms with large media wall, 8 private dining rooms and so forth in each hotel. Also, it is possible to experience European and British club culture at the world’s first Sky Kingdom that is 4 stories tall and 120m high from ground level. Furthermore, music and parties, including eateries around the world are available at the Sky Beach that is located on the 34th floor, the center of the city.

HanmiGlobal participated from the project design phase to construction and operation phase. Design, cost, schedule, and safety management, handover and other owner-related tasks were performed throughout the construction phase.

The following is the interview with Kyung-Back Park, the CM leader of SeobuT&D Yongsan Hotel CM project, Seoul Dragon City Project.

Q. Please introduce the project briefly.
Seoul Dragon City is located at the center of Seoul, Yongsan which includes 1,700 units of guest rooms and is Korea’s first hotelplex. 3 tall towers are connected which embodies the mystical “dragon”, and the buildings include hotel, shopping, cultural space, restaurants, bars, convention and other lifestyle facilities.

What do you remember most while project?
One of the most memorable moments during the construction phase was when installing the sky bridge for 2 of the 3 towers at 120m above ground. Starting on September 26, 2016 at 7 a.m., the sky bridge was lifted 5m per hour, and after 25 hours, on September 27, 7:30 in the morning, it was successfully lifted. Up until now, lifting an 18.7m tall, 22m long, 40m wide, weighing 1,250 ton steel structure (weight of approximately 1,200 vehicles) that is completed on the ground with a cable wire has never happened before. As such, the job attracted a lot of publicity including KBS2 program (VJ Special Forces), who filmed since the beginning of the process.

During the project, how did you contribute for the owner?
Due to the characteristic of the Seoul Dragon City Project, it required numerous specialized technicians for each part. As such, the owners selected the necessary specialized contractors for the project. HanmiGlobal participated as a CM and was responsible for project management tasks from the design phase to construction phase. The key point of a CM in a project is to bring flawless communication between participants with mutual understanding. However, when we first arrived at the site, the environment was very hostile where the participants were trying to find mistakes in one another. That is when I realized the leadership of the CM leader at the early stage of the project is very important in creating an environment where the participants can trust one another and collaborate. As such, as the CM leader, I began visiting each project participants and greeted them and constantly made conversation to ease the environment. As a result, it was possible to observe that the perception of the opposing members had drastically changed. Every Tuesday, the team leaders, including the CM leader met the owner’s CEO to discuss the progress for the past week and related issues. This process continued until the permit to use the building. Overall, the meeting turned out to be friendlier than when it firstly began. The trust of the owner’s CEO surfaced as time passed by and the need and reliance on CM continued to increase. Every Friday at 9 a.m., A meeting with a person in charge from the client, an inspection team, a head of contractor and its employees, and other subcontractors were led by the CM team for the joint safety inspection, and thoughts and opinions were shared at the safety education room. As a result, there were no large accidents for the duration of the project.

What do you think about the foundation of a successful CM?
For the past 13 years as part of HanmiGlobal, what I realize every time is characteristics, the way of thinking, work satisfaction evaluation standard are all different for each customer. As such, it is necessary to adjust your leadership accordingly. Nevertheless, ‘honestly’, ‘diligence’, and ‘owner spirit’ is still the best tool to use in order to provide a strong perception that we are working in the owner’s perspective, for the owner. In addition, we need to show in action that the owner’s staff and the CEO are equivalent to our company’s staff members as well.

Do you have any other words to add?
I would like to extend my appreciation to the members of the domestic business department, management team, engineering team, safety team, group company T&T Korea, and other site members. Furthermore, thank you to the owner’s members and other employees of the (sub) contractors for your efforts and collaboration all throughout the project.