Hyundai's first department store opened in 1977 — now it becomes 750 rental flats

Hyundai Department Store's Ulsan Dong-gu branch opened in 1977 as the company's first store anywhere — nearly fifty years in Dong-gu, the heavy-industry district of Ulsan, where it grew into the area's landmark department store.

The economy underneath it hollowed out. A prolonged recession in heavy industry and shipbuilding restructuring cut the customer base; residents moved to Nam-gu and Jung-gu, and the district's workforce changed. Annual revenue fell below ₩100 billion after 2020 and reached ₩79.8 billion in 2024 — among the lowest of Korean department stores — with accumulated deficits in the tens of billions of won. The nearly fifty-year-old building needs over ₩1 billion a year in maintenance, and hundreds of tenants wanted to leave; normal department-store operation had become impossible.

In June 2026 a Hyundai Department Store consortium was selected as priority negotiator for HUG's public-supported private rental housing programme: three towers of up to 49 floors with 750 rental homes and a lifestyle shopping mall on the lower floors, construction planned from December 2028 to April 2033. If finalised, the store ends operations after 2027. Hyundai calls it a 'new retail platform', not a closure — while residents and local politicians protest giving up a fifty-year landmark, and the Dong-gu office opened joint development talks with the company in July 2026.