“After flying away, I will regain my energy”… Chairman Lee is turning an empty shopping center into a senior center.

Booyoung Group is pursuing a plan to utilize empty spaces among the commercial complexes it owns nationwide as facilities for the elderly, such as a senior center. It is a ‘big decision’ by Chairman Lee Jung-geun (83), who attracted attention by paying employees a birth incentive of 100 million won per child. This means that, as president of the Korea Senior Citizens’ Association, he will take the lead in building ‘senior infrastructure’ in Korean society, which is severely lacking in preparation for the upcoming super-aging society.

According to the Booyoung Group on the 20th, Chairman Lee recently instructed the company’s management to “identify empty commercial buildings in Booyoung housing complexes across the country and find and report on places that can be provided as senior centers for local residents.” Booyoung Group builds homes for sale and rental across the country, and is known to be holding a significant number of unsold or unleased commercial properties due to the recent slump in the commercial market. Among these, we will select commercial centers suitable for senior citizen centers or senior community facilities in terms of area, location, and space and provide them for use as senior citizen centers.

Chairman Lee was inaugurated as the 19th president of the Korea Senior Citizens Association last month. According to the Korea Senior Citizens Association, the occupancy rate of senior facilities relative to the elderly population in Seoul is absolutely insufficient, at only 12%. Currently, there are about 68,000 senior centers nationwide. However, considering the current pace of super-aging, the Korea Senior Citizens Association estimates that more than 70,000 additional units will need to be built in the future. The size of the commercial space that Booyoung can provide as a senior center has not yet been determined, but considering the size of housing owned nationwide, it is likely to reach up to hundreds in the long term.

A Booyoung official said, “The number of new senior centers needed is more than 70,000, but even if we do it, we will only be able to produce a few hundred. “The chairman emphasized that local mayors and county heads should ultimately help.”

Chairman Lee also proposed the construction of a central hall for the Korea Senior Citizens Association immediately after taking office as president of the Senior Citizens Association. Currently, the Senior Citizens Association has halls in each region, but there is no central hall. Even though he wants to find a suitable site, there is an absolute shortage of land, so he hopes that the government will provide the site instead of Booyoung directly covering the construction costs.

In an interview with Maeil Business Newspaper, he said, “It would be good to give it to a place like Jongno 3-ga, where Pagoda Park is where many elderly people gather, but the government says it cannot be done because it is a cultural heritage protection area.” He added, “Elderly people are human cultural assets, so they should be managed together, so why should they be managed as tangible cultural assets? I asked him if he thought it was important, and he said that was true. “I hope the government will take active action,” he said.

Previously, Chairman Lee announced in his inauguration speech as president of the Senior Citizens’ Association last month that he plans to propose to the government to raise the legal senior age from the current 65 to 75. In an interview with Yonhap News that day, he said, “The elderly population is currently 10 million and will be 20 million in 2050. If the elderly age is raised to 75, this number will decrease to about 12 million. “Seniors must participate in activities until they are 75 to alleviate social burden,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman Lee has garnered attention by donating up to 100 million won of his personal money to residents of his hometown village, elementary, middle, and high school alumni, and military classmates who are on the verge of population extinction. Subsequently, at the beginning of this year, employees with children born after 2021 were paid a birth incentive of 100 million won per child. There is an evaluation that the company is putting its corporate social responsibility into action by taking the lead in meeting the national agenda, including the issue of local population extinction, low birth rate, and the establishment of a senior citizen center in preparation for an aging population.

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