The gas station at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea, pictured here March 20, 2024, will soon shut off its pumps for good. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — The gas station at Yongsan, one of the last vestiges of a once-busy headquarters compound, is preparing to turn off its pumps after 32 years of service.
The station, on a hill overlooking Seoul, will close May 1 as part of a plan to return sections of the base to the South Korean government, according to an Army and Air Force Exchange Service news release Tuesday.
The gas station reported average monthly revenue of $70,000 between 2021 and 2022, AAFES spokesman Chris Ward said in an email Thursday. The monthly average fell to $50,000 the following year “and has experienced even further significant declines” in 2024, he said.
Six of eight pumps still in service sat idle for more than two hours Wednesday afternoon. The only cars in the lot were parked there by drivers who exited the base through a nearby pedestrian gate.
Jerry Chandler, an anti-terrorism program manager at Yongsan and a four-year South Korea resident, said he is disappointed by the station’s looming closure.
Chandler — one of the roughly 500 service members, Defense Department civilians and U.S. embassy staff who still live or work at Yongsan — said he and his wife fill up their two cars with premium gas “all the time” at the station.
“Now I have to buy Korean premium gas at almost ($8.33 per gallon),” he said Wednesday at the Dragon Hill Lodge, the base hotel that serves U.S. government personnel and military retirees. “It’s quite an inconvenience.”
The price of regular unleaded at off-base station near Yongsan was about $6.16 a gallon on Wednesday.
The gas station at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea, pictured here March 20, 2024, will soon shut off its pumps for good. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
Gas station workers “will be given priority consideration” for reassignment in accordance with U.S. Forces Korea regulations on South Korean employees, Ward said. Equipment from the station will be disposed of or repurposed for the Directorate of Public Works.
Yongsan previously served as the headquarters for USFK, U.N. Command, Combined Forces Command, Eighth Army and the 2nd Infantry Division.
In 2004, the U.S. military began moving its troops from Yongsan to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek and Daegu Garrison in Daegu, about 40 and 140 miles south of Seoul, respectively.
The $11 billion relocation project, mostly paid by the South Korean government, was meant to consolidate U.S. forces and return the garrison property occupied by the military since the 1950-53 Korean War.
In 2022, Combined Forces Command became the last major command to move its headquarters to Humphreys.
Yongsan’s commissary was shuttered in June.
