The surrounding area is a residential area with abundant greenery. We will incorporate a lot of greenery around the facility and in the rooftop garden on the fourth floor to make it a facility where people can spend a long time comfortably (Yukinari Shiraishi, Commercial Facilities Business Department, Sumitomo Corporation).
The facility will include a space for events, a plaza space with a screen that will bring about new interaction, and an eating zone space where people can spend time in comfort, creating a sense of continuity between the inside and outside of the facility that will allow people to feel integrated with the adjacent park. The fourth floor will house a restaurant floor that integrates the rooftop plaza and indoor space, as well as a movie theater that can show non-movie content.
Seibu Railway and Sumitomo Corporation, which are also the owners of Grand Emio Tokorozawa, are working on the same project, and as a differentiation, the Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Plan “aims to create a facility where people can stay for a long time and relax” (President Goto, Seibu Holdings). Grand Emio Tokorozawa is a “community-type station building,” while the Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Plan is positioned as a “wide-area customer-attracting commercial facility” with a food court, cinema, plaza, and other facilities. The company will begin to attract tenants in earnest, but the “Notice of Development Project Plan” posted on the site says “retail stores, restaurants, movie theater, and parking lot,” so it seems certain that a movie theater will be included in the project.
The Seibu Group is working to transform the Tokorozawa area from a “passing town” where people “pass through” as a bedroom community to a “living town” where people “gather and spend time together” to “live, work, learn, and play”. The Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Project is the culmination of these efforts. The company hopes to make Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Project the center for creating and disseminating the “Tokorozawa Style,” which offers the charms of both the city and the suburbs.
The Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Project will have a site area of approximately 34,000m2 and a total floor area of approximately 129,000m2 with seven stories above ground. The retail area will be approximately 43,000m2, and about 150 stores are planned to open. The parking lot will accommodate approximately 1,700 vehicles. The opening is scheduled for the fall of 2024, two years from now. The name has not yet been decided.
The location is a 4-minute walk from the west exit of Tokorozawa Station on the Seibu Shinjuku and Ikebukuro lines, and was formerly the site of the Seibu Tokorozawa Sharyo Plant. Near the west exit of the station is Seibu Tokorozawa S.C. (Waltz Tokorozawa), a commercial facility operated by Seibu and Sogo, which is connected by a pedestrian deck to City Tower Tokorozawa Classy, a 29-story condominium tower complex with commercial facilities on the lower floors. When completed, the area will be a huge shopping mall within walking distance of the west exit of the station.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Takashi Goto, President and Representative Director of Seibu Holdings, Kotaro Tameda, Managing Executive Officer and General Manager of the Living & Real Estate Business Division of Sumitomo Corporation, and Kazuyuki Inoue, President and Representative Director of Shimizu Corporation, representing Shimizu Corporation and Seibu Corporation, laid the groundwork and prayed for construction safety.
After the ritual, the business owners, Takashi Goto, President and CEO of Seibu Holdings, and Kotaro Tameda, Managing Executive Officer and General Manager of the Living & Real Estate Business Division of Sumitomo Corporation, took the stage.
President Goto began his presentation by explaining that the land where the Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Project is being planned was the site of the Tachikawa Aviation Arsenal Tokorozawa Branch Arsenal before the war, and that after the war it was established as Seibu Railway’s Tokorozawa Rolling Stock Plant, the only directly operated plant of a major Japanese private railway, which manufactured and repaired rolling stock for Seibu Railway. After closing the plant in 2000, the company worked with Tokorozawa City to determine how Tokorozawa’s urban development should be promoted in the future.
He continued by mentioning that the commercial facility will be widely used by the family generation, which is the main target of the project, and that it will be developed as a facility where visitors can experience and feel what it is like to visit, as well as a commercial facility that can realize Tokorozawa’s uniqueness. He also mentioned that Tokorozawa City is planning to develop a pedestrian walkway and road park around the building.
The direction of Tokorozawa’s urban development is to evolve from a bedroom community to a living town with the four elements of “live, work, learn, and play,” as if it were one’s own home. In this direction, we are moving forward with the opening of the Grand Emio Tokorozawa at Tokorozawa Station, the conversion of the Belluna Dome into a ball park, and the renovation of Seibuen Amusement Park. The Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development Plan is an important element in the evolution of Tokorozawa as a city. Please look forward to its opening in the fall of 2024.
Mr. Tameida began by mentioning that the history of Sumitomo Corporation as a general trading company was in the real estate business. He then introduced the history of Sumitomo Corporation’s predecessor, a company established 103 years ago to develop the Osaka North Port area, where Universal Studios Japan is currently located. He explained that Sumitomo Corporation has recently been promoting large-scale mixed-use development projects mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Kinki region, as well as developing residential, office, and logistics facilities, and managing them within the group.
We aim to create commercial facilities that can be used by local residents for a long time, based on a deep understanding of the characteristics of each location. Our motto is to create commercial facilities one by one, so to speak, in a custom-made manner. This project is our first commercial development in Saitama Prefecture. We hope to create a facility that will be a new hub of interaction and a place of relaxation that will contribute to the further development of the Tokorozawa area, with the safety and security of the local residents as our top priority.
Then, Mayor Masato Fujimoto of Tokorozawa City took the stage as guest of honor. The urban development of the west exit of Tokorozawa Station is a project that I have been actively working on as a pillar of the city’s growth strategy since I took office as the city’s mayor. This is the last remaining large-scale space in front of Tokorozawa Station. It was the last large space and its land use was the key to the city’s development. Currently, the city is fully committed to creating a zero-carbon city, a city where people can walk and live. The Tokorozawa Station West Exit Development is an environmentally friendly facility with plenty of greenery and recreational space, a new green and human space in front of Tokorozawa Station, which is exactly what the city is aiming for. It is a new green and human space in front of Tokorozawa Station, which is exactly what the city is aiming for.
Finally, Mr. Kazuyuki Inoue, President and Representative Director of Shimizu Corporation, took the stage as the representative of the Shimizu/Seibu joint venture. He stated, “Construction will begin today, and in addition to safety management, we will work to minimize the impact of the construction on the neighborhood by maintaining good communication, and the entire company will work together to ensure that the project is delivered within the construction period with no accidents and no disasters.
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