On Thursday, September 8, 2011, the Polar Research Institute affiliated with the Korea Maritime Research Institute held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new building. The Polar Research Institute will spend a total of 88.2 billion won on 35,887㎡ of R&D site in Songdo International City's 5th District (213-3) to complete the building by 2015. In the first stage, an institutional operation building, a research experiment building, a polar support building, and a dormitory will be built, and in the second stage, a special experiment building, a sample storage building, a polar equipment maintenance building, and a polar science museum will be built.