Hilton Seoul to close business for redevelopment project

Millennium Hilton Seoul, founded in 1983, will close down for business on Dec. 31 due to redevelopment plans for the property.

The five-star hotel said on Thursday its last business day will be Saturday and it won't be under the Hilton brand from Jan. 1, 2023. 

Sitting at the foot of Mt. Namsan, the 22-floor luxury hotel has 700 guest rooms with a gross floor area of 82,856 square meters. It has been labeled the first luxury hotel designed by a Korean architect, Kimm Jong-soung.

Since its foundation, the hotel had been co-managed by the now-defunct Daewoo Group and US hotel chain Hilton International until Daewoo sold the property to Singapore’s real estate giant City Developments Limited (CDL) for 260 billion ($206.4 million) in 1999. 

In December 2021, CDL signed a definitive agreement to sell the hotel to IGIS Asset Management Co., the largest real estate investment firm in Korea, for 1.1 trillion won.   

IGIS is set to demolish the current property and build a mixed-use complex comprising a hotel, office and retail space.

Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., which has funded 409.9 billion won of the redevelopment project, said in April it plans to build the country's first landing area for urban air mobility (UAM) on the hotel site. The new building will open in 2027.

Write to Mi-Kyoung Lee at capial@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.