As you walk out of the Ewha Womans University subway station, you can? avoid seeing the advertisements for the new shopping centers around Ewha. They tell you that, along with Fabee (formerly May Queen) right next to Ewha? main gate, a new ?igliore shopping mall at Sinchon Station and ?ES apM shopping mall in between main gate and Ewha University subway station are also about to open.
Fabee is ready to open first in September. But because it stands adjacent to Ewha? main entrance and because of concerns about commercialization Ewhaians have protested in front of the construction site every Wednesday since April. On April 28, Student Government Association and pungmulpaes (Korean traditional percussion band) of Ewha, Yonsei and Sogang University hosted a large scale demonstration to stop the construction of Fabee and protect the Sinchon area from commercialization. Nonetheless Fabee will open as scheduled in September.
Next in line, Sinchon Train Station will be transformed into a Migliore shopping mall two stories below and six stories above ground, with construction scheduled to finish by October 2006.
The first floor is to be filled with luxury goods, the second floor with female clothes, the third floor with children? and men? clothes, the fourth floor with accessories and food court, and the fifth and sixth floors with multiplex theaters and family restaurants. Yoo Jong-hwan, president of Migliore, held a press conference on July 19 and announced that Migliore will put 120 billion won in Sinchon station to build a fashion mall, which combines culture and leisure.
?ES apM (name not yet decided) will be the third new shopping center near Ewha, which will be built in the area where the Howondang shop is now, on the street between the Ewha? main entrance and the subway station. ?ES apM is scheduled to be finished by August 2006. The Seodaemun-gu office has issued a permit to build this mall last November, and the planned size of this building is larger than that of the Migliore shopping mall in Myung-dong.
Economists expect that Edae-ap (area around the main entrance of Ewha) will be a wonderful market for investors since there are about 300 thousand people moving around Ewha every day. However, many Ewhaians worry that those will worsen the already heavy traffic and destroy the educational environment around Ewha. Shin Na-rae (Piano, 1) says, ? wish people had seen Ewha as an educational environment not as a shopping area. Then, they wouldn? have built a shopping mall so nearby like this.
springi02@ewha.ac.kr
저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지