Government Announces Camp Red Cloud Will Become A Museum and Pororo Theme Park

The 2nd Infantry Division headquarters will move to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek next year which means Camp Red Cloud will be closed and redeveloped:

A U.S. military base in Uijeongbu in Gyeonggi Province will be turned into tourist facilities after U.S. forces there move to Pyeongtaek, the city government said Wednesday.

The U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) stationed at Camp Red Cloud (CRC) is scheduled to be moved to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek next year in accordance with Seoul and Washington’s plans to relocate the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). Pyeongtaek is located 70 kilometers south of the capital.

“We will come up with detailed plans by February 2018 to turn CRC into a tourist complex,” the city said in a release. “Toward that end, we recently commissioned a study to a private, specialized company.”

Once the 628,000 square meters of land are vacated, the city is planning to create a complex in which visitors can learn about Korea’s modern and contemporary history as well as the importance of national security.

The city is also considering using records related to the Korean War, World War II and the Vietnam War, currently stored in a CRC war museum.

After detailed plans are prepared and a feasibility and profitability study is conducted, the city will ask the central government to lead in the construction.

The city expects the envisioned complex will be especially attractive to tourists, together with another cultural complex there whose construction is scheduled to be completed in 2018. The cultural complex will host a Pororo theme park, featuring the popular animated character, and family hotels as well as YG Entertainment’s YG Global K-Pop Cluster. [Korea Times via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but a history complex and a Pororo Theme Park to me seems like it does not go together very well.  Plus Korea already has so many museums that another one in Uijongbu will not drive tourism to the city.  The government should turn the whole thing into a giant Pororo Theme Park which would drive tourism to Uijongbu and further develop that part of the city.  As it is right now Koreans really don’t have a reason to go to Uijongbu and a Pororo Theme Park would give Korean families a good reason to visit.