Lotte sold the building and leased it back — the Masan store died nine years later

In 2015 Lotte took over Daewoo Department Store — then the only Daewoo store left in the country — renovated it and reopened it as Lotte Department Store Masan. At the same time the deal that would decide the store's future was done: Lotte sold the building to KB Asset Management and leased it back, planning a twenty-year tenancy.

The store never climbed off the bottom of the table: annual sales sat in the ₩70bn range and it ranked last among Lotte's 32 department stores nationwide. Then the landlord moved. KB Asset Management asked for the building back, citing development, and Lotte agreed to end the lease early — nine years into a twenty-year arrangement. The store ran its last day on 30 June 2024, closing at 8:30 p.m.

About 600 people worked there; roughly 70 direct employees were transferred, leaving about 530 tenant and service workers without the store. The building — 97,915 square metres, split among 44 owners — was still vacant a year later, and an impact assessment found surrounding commercial-district sales fell in the three months after the closure. In old Masan, only Shinsegae remains as a department store.