Floors B2 and B3 available 24 hours a day except Friday nights and Sundays; district supports barrier installation and signage to turn idle private space into community infrastructure
One hundred new parking spaces have appeared in central Seoul — without building a single new structure.
The opening of Ahyeon Holiness Church's attached parking lot in Bukahyeon-dong to the public is expected to ease the chronic parking shortage around Chungjeongno Station and Ahyeon Station.
Seodaemun-gu announced Monday that it had partnered with Ahyeon Holiness Church to convert the church's private parking facility into a shared public lot available to all residents and visitors.
The area between Chungjeongno Station and Ahyeon Station is densely packed with housing and commercial facilities, making parking difficult to secure.
Rather than constructing a new public parking garage, the district chose to open idle space in an existing private facility for shared use by residents and visitors.
The newly opened lot occupies the second and third basement floors of Ahyeon Holiness Church, offering 100 spaces in total. It is available around the clock except from 8 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and all day Sundays.
Rates are 3,000 won per hour, 10,000 won for a full-day pass and 120,000 won for a monthly pass. Purchasing a pass in advance through the Modoo's Parking app brings a 25 to 50% discount depending on the pass type.
The district supported the installation of parking barriers and directional signage needed to open the private lot to the public. The arrangement lets the church maximize use of spaces that would otherwise sit empty, while giving residents and visitors a convenient, nearby place to park.
Seodaemun-gu sees the initiative as a practical alternative to tackling urban parking shortages — one that requires no new land acquisition and no large construction budget, relying instead on existing facilities.
The district plans to monitor usage at the Ahyeon Holiness Church shared lot and expand the shared-parking program to other private facilities that have spare capacity during certain hours.
For more information, contact the Seodaemun-gu Office's Parking and Traffic Division or the Modoo's Parking app.
"In the city center, making good use of existing spaces is just as important as building new ones," Seodaemun-gu District Mayor Park Woon-ki said. "We will keep connecting idle private space with residents' needs to solve everyday inconveniences in a practical way."
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