Booyoung Town to Resume Works Early 2015

• 31 December 2015
• Property Focus
• 4314 Views

After halting shortly after breaking ground in May 2013, work on the stalled US$1.1 billion Booyoung Town development is set to resume early this year.

Speaking anonymously, a senior manager at the South Korea-owned Booyoung Khmer, the sister business to Booyoung Town, recently told The Phnom Penh Post that work on the project would begin in early 2015 after the company redesigned the master plan to meet customer’s changing demand.

He said the company had redesigned the project to cater for market demands and it would now include condominiums, apartments, retail and office space in a mixed Khmer-Korean style. “First, we designed the residential aspect with large rooms but at the moment people want only two- or three-bedroom units, so we have had to re-design to meet the current market’s demand,” he said.

Observers believe the 235 hectare development on Russian Boulevard will be successful because it includes various buildings types. The target customers are Cambodians, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporeans.

Geum Yeon Hwang, Booyoung Khmer’s general manager said the slow work was due to the political situation. “We did not suspend the construction, but we are just doing it slowly and the entire project is scheduled to be completed within seven years, but things can change depending on the situation,” he said. The developer was still confident the project would be successful because Cambodian real estate sector was seeing strong growth.

While some realtors believe the mixed property development there will be successful, the failure of a number of Korean projects have left others feeling skeptical.