South Korea’s Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to bring landscape changes to the financial hub of Yeouido and the Yongsan district that used to be the home for U.S. forces based in Seoul through upscale and greenery.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, who recently began his third term, said on Tuesday that the Seoul metropolitan government will revamp the city’s financial district Yeouido, western Seoul, with more cosmopolitan look. The aged apartments will be allowed to upscale and remodel, and more parks and leisure and community centers under the Seoul’s Yeouido Master Plan to reinvigorate Yeouido, Park added.

He shared the city renovation plan during his four-day visit to Singapore to draw foreign investors.

As one of three major downtown areas designated under the 2030 Seoul Plan, a new plan to renovate the city by 2030, along with Gwanghwamun in central Seoul and Gangnam in southern Seoul, Yeouido would be allowed to construct high-rise apartment buildings with up to 50 stories to change the skyline along the Han River.

“Apartment renovation project in Yeouido will be carried out in line with Yeouido Master Plan,” said Park. “Yeouido will be transformed as a place that can meet both residential and commercial needs.”

Seoul has gone all out to groom Yeouido as the country’s major financial district for years. Despite the fact that the area is a home of the country’s securities, banks, and stock exchanges, it has failed to lure major global financial groups. The residential areas in the district have also remained outdated after they were mainly developed in the 1970s and 80s.

Seoul has so many similarly-designed buildings, Park added, so he would offer incentives like eased regulations to a builder who has a plan to construct buildings with creative design or eco-friendly buildings.

The rail line between Seoul Station and Yongsan Station will be also reconstructed underground, while on the ground level, there will be a shopping center and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) complex. The project will be modeled after Paris’ Rive Gauche urban renewal project that covered old railways and built a hospital, library and university campus.

By Choi Jae-won and Choi Mira

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