New AAFES complex has much
in store for Osan's consumers
By Jim Lea, Osan bureau chief
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — When Osan completed a weeklong
training exercise recently, people walking along Broadway must have wondered where all the
stores went.
The blocklong string of buildings housing many Army and Air Force
Exchange Service facilities for years was suddenly empty. A crew was demolishing the Class
Six store and shoppette.
“While people were running around in their chem gear, we sort of
came in like elves in the night and moved things,” said H. Lee Holloway,
AAFES-Korea’s Central Exchange general manager.
The move was necessary to make way for what will be the biggest
exchange complex in South Korea.
Holloway said groundbreaking for the new AAFES shopping mall at Osan
will be in February or March, depending on how quickly the old buildings can be
demolished. Completion is scheduled for August or September 2003.
The $24 million, 180,000-square-foot facility will be “a
one-stop shopping center,” he said.
The main exchange will feature 60,000 square feet of sales space
— nearly twice the space of the main exchange at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, now the
biggest in the country.
It will feature a military clothing store, a furniture store,
concessionaire shops, a new Class Six, a 6,000-square-foot shoppette, barber and beauty
shops, a Bookmark, a video rental shop, a new car sales outlet, laundry and dry-cleaning
shop, a photo studio and a food court with more than 550 seats – three times the
current facility’s size.
“The food court will have a covered patio outside, so people can
dine while they watch F-16s take off and land,” Holloway said. The food court will
include a Taco Bell, Anthony’s Pizza, Robin Hood sandwich shop, Baskin-Robbins and a
few new franchises.
“We’re going to have a Charley’s Steakery, a Captain
D’s seafood place and a Cinnabon,” he said.
There’ll also be a couple of non-AAFES facilities included
— a post office and Community Bank.
The number of items in the main exchange will be considerably
“plused up,” he said. While he said he doesn’t know yet exactly how many
more items will be added, he said it will include a larger clothing selection and
virtually “everything in the AAFES stock assortment.”
“Right now, many people go from Osan to Yongsan to buy what they
can’t get here,” Holloway said. “That will be turned around. People will be
coming from Yongsan to shop here.”
He said he also expects a big increase in traffic to Osan from
elsewhere in the country.
“There are going to be buses coming from bases everywhere in the
country to shop here,” he said.
And, there’ll be plenty of parking, adding, “we’ll
have just over 200 parking spaces, about double what we have now.”
“The new shopping center will be,” he said, “a huge,
huge quality-of-life improvement for Osan.”
The Class Six and shoppette have been moved temporarily into the old
Osan-ni dining facility near the base golf course’s clubhouse. The Bookmark,
concessionaire mall, and barber and beauty shops now are in the old McPherson Community
Center. Those facilities will be in those locations for about 18 months, Holloway said.
The community center is in Building 745 near the base billeting
facility. Billeting will be moving when the new three-story, 350-room Visiting Quarters is
completed across the street from the current main exchange.
Back to November stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from October, 2001
Stories from September, 2001
Stories from August, 2001
Stories from July, 2001
Stories from June, 2001
Stories from May, 2001
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
