“To Be Developed as Security and History Attractions”
Paju — Reporter Kim Jung-gu
Former U.S. military bases that had been sealed off by checkpoints and barbed wire in Paju, Uijeongbu, and Dongducheon are being converted into public tourist and cultural spaces.
Gyeonggi Province and municipal governments in northern Gyeonggi said on the 28th that they have recently launched a series of tourism and cultural projects to repurpose returned U.S. base sites.
Camp Greaves in Paju, returned in 2007, now functions as a history and cultural experience center. Beginning on the 1st, Gyeonggi Province fully opened the ammunition-storage exhibition at Camp Greaves History Park to the public, shifting from a reservation-based, restricted viewing system to free, walk-in access.
Uijeongbu’s Camp LaGuardia and the Hollingwater site are undergoing park and road construction. Since its return in 2007, Dongducheon’s Camp Nimble has been redeveloped into a community-friendly area with a waterfront park, amenities, and green space.
Local governments are actively pursuing the reuse of returned U.S. bases to help revive regional economies. Border areas and neighborhoods near military facility protection zones have long faced development limits, so officials aim to turn these returned sites into tourism assets to stimulate sluggish local economies.
However, many returned sites face overlapping regulations — including military protection zones and development-restriction designations — that slow the pace of development.
A DMZ project official at the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization said, “Visits to returned U.S. bases like Camp Greaves have been steadily increasing. These sites have strong potential to evolve into longer-stay tourism destinations tied to history, security, and cultural programming.”
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