45 new Tokyo high-rises by 2020

TOKYO’S skyline is set to welcome 45 new skyscrapers by the time the city hosts the Olympics in 2020, as a surge of buildings planned in the early years of Abenomics near completion.

Japan’s capital would see nearly 50 percent more highrise space in the next three years than the preceding three, said Toyokazu Imazeki, chief analyst at office leasing and consulting firm Sanko Estate. The increase was fuelled by the fiscal expansion and monetary easing under Abe’s economic programme, launched after his election in 2012. Completion “This marks the timing for completion of buildings planned from about 2013 when developers were expecting the economy to expand,” said Imazeki. The increase in building was supported not only by Abe’s expansionary policies but also Japan’s ultra-low interest rates, he said.

New leaseable office space in buildings with floors of more than 661m² in the three central wards in Tokyo would rise to about 1.8 million square metres in 2020, from 1.2 million square metres in the three years to 2017, Imazeki said. As well as properties in areas such as the Marunouchi district near Tokyo Station, a 41-floor new main building at the iconic Hotel Okura is scheduled for completion in 2019.

About 75 percent of new constructions in the 2016 to 2018 period would be in the central Chiyoda, Chuo and Minato wards, compared with 61 percent from 2011 to 2015, according to Mori Building research.