The Hanshin 4 District Reconstruction Project known as the “Gangnam Reconstruction Mecca” went to GS Engineering & Construction after it won a majority of the votes cast by the members of the Hanshin 4 District Reconstruction Club at a meeting on Oct. 15. GS E&C won 1,359 of 2,577 votes to win the apartment reconstruction project valued at around 1 trillion won.

The Hanshin project involves the construction of 31 35-storey apartment buildings from the area’s 2,890 apartment units and will now include the apartments in Shin Banpo Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 17, Nokwon Hanshin Apt. and Beny House Villa. The buildings will have three basement floors and there will be 3,685 apartment units in total.

The club said GS E&C’s bid for the project came in at 1.749 trillion won, while Lotte Construction’s bid was 9,345 billion won.

GS E&C plans to build 10,000 apartments in what the company dubbed as the “Xi brand Town” in the Hanshin 4 District, Seocho, which is one of the most sought-after parts of Gangnam District, anchored by the Banpo Xi’s 3,410 apts, Shin Banpo Xi’s 607 apts, and Shin Banpo Central Xi’s 757 units. They will all be apartments, showing off how up-to-date Xi brand apartments can be.

As a joint partner for the mammoth apartment reconstruction project, the builder signed a finance agreement with KEB Han Bank worth 2.630 trillion won to cover such expenses as the construction cost (430 billion won), relocation for residents (1.4 trillion won) and to finance mid-term payments (800 billion won).

The Hanshin 4 District will be renamed as the Shin Banpo Maypole Xi after building rows of Xi apartment buildings in the area, including a bridge linking two tallest buildings named “Sky Community.” President Lim Byung-yong said winning the Hanshin 4 District Project has a special meaning for the company, because it was the first project won since the company declared its “Fair Management Plan.”  Lim hopes all bad practices previously in the real estate market and city will be in the past. 

GS E&C flipped the construction industry upside down by ranking atop the sector 2.554 trillion won worth of orders under its belt, with Lotte Construction sinking to the 4th on orders of just 1.848 trillion won. GS E&C said recently it won a 1 trillion-won ($865 million) order to repair a refinery plant by early 2019 in the United Arab Emirates that suffered a fire.

UAE Takreer, which is wholly owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., placed the order with GS E&C to restore burnt parts of its oil-processing plant in Ruwais, 250 kilometers west of the UAE’s capital city of Abu Dhabi, the company said in a statement.

In 2009, GS E&C won the order to build the Ruwais plant and completed the work in November last year. But a fire in January mostly destroyed it.

GS Engineering & Construction Corp. is a Korea-based company mainly engaged in the construction and civil engineering businesses. 

Along with its subsidiaries, the company operates in six business segments: civil engineering segment, which constructs roads and railways; building and apartment business segment, which constructs office buildings, factories, apartment buildings and others; plant segment, which constructs oil, gas and petrochemical plants, water treatment facilities and others; electricity power segment, which constructs power generation plants and others; hotel segment, which operates hotels, and other business segment, which operates resort business and rental business. 

On Nov. 19, 2013, it acquired a 22.7% stake in Oksan Ochang Highway Corp. After that, it holds 60.1% stake in Oksan Ochang Highway Corp. and propylene production facilities, it said.