Lotte Shopping, Korea’s largest retailer, said Monday that it has entered into an investment agreement with Incheon City, consolidating its plans to develop a multiplex shopping district in the city’s agricultural wholesale area.

Around 2 trillion won ($1.87 billion) will be invested in the project, which will mirror Japan’s Roppongi Hills, an integrated urban center that includes cultural, residential, shopping and other business properties, the company said.

Lotte Shopping will pay 30.6 billion won in contract holdback for the 58,664 square meters of land and buildings at Guweol Agricultural Wholesale Market in Incheon. The formal contract will be carried out at the end of June at a purchase price of 306 billion won, according to the retailer.

On Jan. 30, 2013, Lotte Shopping also acquired the nearby Incheon intercity bus terminal for 900 billion won, providing the company a total of roughly 136,000 square meters for its project.

The construction will break ground in the latter half of 2014 and be completed in phases until 2020, the company announced.

By 2017, a large-scale, “one-stop” shopping complex will open, followed by a street mall and 10 new apartment buildings in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Lotte Shopping predicts the multiplex center will provide a positive economic outlook for Incheon, contributing to balanced city development and creating about 20,000 jobs.

“Lotte aims to mobilize all of its resources and distribution capacities in order to build an attraction that surpasses Roppongi Hills,” said executive managing director Noe Yoon-cheal, the head of Lotte’s new store development division.

By Kim Joo-hyun (jhk@heraldcorp.com)