Editor’s note: Students in the Master of Real Estate Development Program are traveling around the world – literally! Seven graduate students had the opportunity to travel west as part of an immersive study abroad class in summer 2016. Here is the first post from Morgan Green, one of the students on the journey.
Today was our second day in Seoul, and it continued to exceed our expectations. We started the day with an hour drive outside Seoul to the Costco South Korea Office, where we met with Ken Simmons. It was fascinating to talk with him and his team about what it takes to manages real estate operations for Costco in South Korea. We took a tour of the location and ended with a great lunch at Costco, hot dog and sodas!
From Costco, we traveled to the new city of Songdo, South Korea. Songdo is a new city where the Korean Government has partnered with private developers to reclaim large portions of ground. After reclaiming unusable pieces of ground into large, ready-to-develop land, they design and construct smart cities aimed to bring business to Seoul. We had a great opportunity meet with the team who manages the IFEZ, Incheon Free Economic Zone and Gale International, the key developer behind the project. Both meetings were mind-blowing and extremely helpful in helping open our eyes to the size of real estate transactions and the scale of opportunity. The smart city has residential living space, office and retail, schools, hospitals, and great opportunities for arts and leisure, all in walking distance. When the total project is built out, it will be home to more than 600,000 people. Gale International was a great host, meeting with us in their office in the Northeast Asia Trade Tower, over 1,000 feet tall!
From there, we went a short distance to the University of Utah Asia Campus. At this location in Songdo, the U has been selected as one of 10 Universities that will bring higher education to the area. A tour of the brand-new campus and learning about future plans for the U in Asia was very interesting.
For our last night in Seoul, we went to a Korean dinner that did not disappoint. Although the group voted it was not as comfortable for us all, taking our shoes off at the door, sitting on the floor, and eating some unknown foods, it was well worth it! We all loved trying the food and enjoying the company of our South Korean guide, Song Jo. Overall, Seoul was an amazing city that we all agreed would be amazing to visit again.