Lotte Group, setting the silver industry as its future growth engine, is stepping on the gas to explore the silver market. Lotte Hotel will be the industry’s first company to build a big-ticket housing complex for the elderly.
Lotte will build a ”five-star” silver town in Magok, Seoul, following a similar one in Gijang-gun, Busan. Lotte Group plans to enter the IoT market by utilizing the silver town as a beachhead to big data for senior citizens.
The group has a strategy to nurture the silver care business as its future growth engine. Lotte Group plans to secure an upper hand over the silver industry by maxing out synergetic effects among subsidiaries of the group.
Lotte has released the silver town brand “VL,” standing for Vitality & Liberty. VL symbolizes values of promising daily lives full of dynamics and freedom.
“VL Osiria,” a first silver town under the brand VL, will be built by 2024.
The project calls for constructing structures each with four basement floors and 18 ground floors with a combined 198,670 sq. meters on a site area covering 61,031 sq. meters, the biggest-ever in Korea.
Prior applications for accommodating 574 households will be accepted between May 5 and May 6.
Lottery winners will move into the silver town in August 2024.
On top of residential units, the silver town will have 408 health care house units for nursing senior citizens, an oriental medical hospital, a comprehensive medical center and commercial facilities. Occupants are required to be aged 60 or more.
The silver town will target active senior citizens, differing from the conventional nursing homes. Senior citizens aged between 50 and 74 account for more than 30 percent of the nation’s total population.
The elderly are still engaged in social and economic activities. Senior citizens are called “YOLD” or “Young Old” since they emerge as active consumers based on economic power after retirement.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government and construction industry officials, SMG is reviewing a construction permit on Lotte’s “VL Magok.”
The silver town with 782 units will be scheduled to be dedicated by July 2025.
A Lotte official said, “Lotte is revising a plan according to a recommendation by a screening committee, calling or expanding occupants’ space, but the timeline for launching the project remain unchanged.”
Lotte is also seeking to build silver towns in the Seoul metropolitan area, including Yongin, Gyeonggi-do. Lotte Group is the first conglomerate to enter the silver town business.
There is a similar silver town, dubbed “Samsung Novel County,” run by a foundation of Samsung Group.
Lotte Group is seizing on the domestic silver market as its future growth engine at the behest of Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin.
The value of the Korean silver market stands at about 100 trillion won. Chairman Shin is known to have told that silver care is the segment Lotte may fare the best.
Lotte established Lotte Healthcare in March by investing 70 billion won. Senior Executive Vice President Lee Hun-ki of Lotte Holdings took office as CEO of Lotte Healthcare on April 1.
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