- A residence hotel with over 400 rooms will begin operation in the building, and Daewoo International will move in, too.
SEOUL, South Korea, July 16, 2014 (ANTARA/PRNewswire) -- The North East Asia Trade (NEAT) Tower, the tallest building in South Korea, now stands resplendent in Songdo International Business District, Incheon.
POSCO Construction and Engineering (CEO: Hwang Tae-hyeon), the contractor for the project, held a completion ceremony on the 10th of this month to mark the full operation of the building.
After 8 years of construction, the tower stands 305 meters high with 68 floors above ground, providing a diversified mix of different spaces, including offices, hotel rooms and even an observatory. Specifically, floors 2 to 33 will be allocated to local or international leading businesses and commercial facilities. Floors 9 to 21, in particular, will be occupied by Daewoo International, a Korean general merchant operating globally, to serve as its headquarters.
The 36th and 37th floors will provide spaces for banquets, restaurants, meeting rooms and other similar facilities, while floors 38 to 64 will accommodate a residence hotel with 423 guest rooms, including a penthouse on the top floor. An observatory with a full view of the surrounding business district is located on the 65th floor.
POSCO E&C made sure that it applied the highest level of security and anti-disaster measures to the building. For example, it deployed global positioning system sensors to help ensure the real-time measurement of vibration, displacement or deformation in the building caused by external factors, making it possible to preemptively identify any issues that could compromise the safety or structural integrity of the building.
In addition, the anti-disaster control center located on the first floor underground provides the ability to centrally monitor the power supply, lighting, CCTV system, access control and other utility services. The 30th floor and the 60th floors each have a shelter that can accommodate all occupants safely and promptly in the event of an emergency, such as a fire. The building has 29 elevators operating at a speed of 420 meters per minute and capable of carrying users from the ground floor to the observatory on the 65th floor within one minute.
NEAT Tower also plans to seek LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification, one of the most renowned environmental certifications in the world, from the U.S. Green Building Council. Examples of measures to meet the criteria of the certification include a system that collects and treats part of the sewage from the building for reuse in landscaping and the building's toilet facilities. What's more, its paint, carpet, wallpaper and other materials each feature a low content of volatile organic compounds.
POSCO E&C, the contractor for this project, is a globally recognized construction company that operates across a wide range of projects, including environmental and energy plants, urban development, large scale SOC projects, high-rise intelligent buildings and residential project. POSCO E&C brings to each project its plant engineering technologies and know-how accumulated from the construction of the steel mills in Pohang and Gwangyang that have remained globally competitive over the past 40 years.
Among such projects is the planning of extended urban development for Hanoi that the contractor won for 6.4 million dollars in September 2008 and successfully completed in July 2011. Focusing on the threefold expansion of the city area from 921 sq. km to 3344.6 sq. km, the project is one of the world's largest master plans for urban development, involving all segments ranging from new towns, roads, water supply and sewage to power, waterway improvement, ailroad and telecommunications.
Another project is the Vattanac Capital Tower located at the center of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, which the company completed in December of last year. With 4 floors underground and 39 above, the building is currently the highest of its kind in the country to be controlled on an automated basis. The total budget for the project was 180 million US dollars, with construction beginning in March 2010 and finishing in December 2013.
Meanwhile, Songdo International Business District where the NEAT Tower is located is only 15 minutes away from Incheon International Airport via the Great Incheon Bridge (21 km long) that opened in October 2009. It has a unique geographic advantage, given that 38 cities are within 2 hours' flight. A day trip can be made to major international cities with population over 1 million, including Shanghai and Tokyo.
The district is now being developed as a center for international business that embraces international business centers, a residential complex and industrial parks for advanced biotechnologies and the knowledge industry. Some international organizations are also located in the district, including the Secretariat of the Global Climate Fund and the Korean office of the World Bank Group that opened in October 2012 and October 2013, respectively.
Within the district, POSCO E&C is involved in a variety of projects including high-rise buildings within the international business zone itself, as well as apartments, commercial installations and a park.
Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20140715/8521404024
Editor: PR Wire
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