Suncheon mayor's office moved to top floor of new city hall, raising eyebrows

Mayor's office redesigned from 2nd to 6th floor, prompting calls to reconsider department layout

With construction of Suncheon's new city hall now more than 90 percent complete, the decision to move Mayor Son Hun-mo's office and the chief of staff's office from the originally planned second floor to the top — the sixth — floor is drawing criticism.

The move runs counter to a broader trend among local governments across South Korea, where most mayors and county chiefs have placed their offices on lower floors to signal accessibility. The Yeosu mayor's office is on the first floor, Gwangyang's on the second, the integrated Gwangju-South Jeolla mayor's office on the third, Mokpo's on the second, and the Goheung-gun county chief's office on the third. Suncheon stands out as the only one to push its mayor's office all the way to the top floor.

According to the city, the new city hall complex is being built on a 26,758-square-meter site next to the existing building in Jancheon-dong at a cost of 216.5 billion won ($144 million). The complex will include a main administrative building with one below-ground floor and six above-ground floors, a council building and a cultural station building.

Construction stands at more than 90 percent completion. The complex is scheduled to be finished in September, with departments moving in sequentially in October. The existing city hall building will then be demolished and replaced with a garden.

The issue is that Suncheon is bucking a broader trend: in the era of elected local government, many municipalities have placed their mayor's offices on lower floors specifically to improve communication with residents — a principle the city appears to be ignoring.

The floor change was initiated by former Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu, and critics say Mayor Son has made no effort to reverse or correct it since taking office.

Residents raising the issue argue that requiring the mayor to take an elevator to the very top floor is inefficient and inconvenient for both visitors and city staff. They are calling for the office to be moved back down to the second or third floor even at this late stage.

When reporters asked Son about the decision to place the mayor's office on the sixth floor during a visit to the city hall briefing room on the day of his inauguration, July 1, he responded without apparent concern. "I have been briefed that construction of the new city hall is proceeding without any particular problems," he said, adding that "once it is completed in September, I plan to move into the mayor's office as scheduled, around Oct. 15, which is Citizens' Day."

A city official overseeing the new city hall construction project offered a different explanation. The department layout was designed around a standard of four divisions per bureau, the official said. "If the mayor's office is placed in the middle, the remaining division would have to be pushed to a higher floor, which creates efficiency problems by splitting a bureau across floors," the official said.