Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 January 12 - 18 [LOCAL ECONOMY]

Local small shops can’t survive under Sky Tree

The construction of Tokyo Sky Tree, the world’s highest broadcasting tower, is under way by Tobu Railway Co., Ltd, in the old commercial neighborhood of “shitamachi” in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward.

Tobu is also putting up a giant shopping center at the foot of Sky Tree. However, for local small retail shop owners, who have run their stores in this “shitamachi” area for so long, the rent for space in the shopping center is so high that they gave up on the idea of moving into the building.

Tobu Railway is now building the “Tokyo Sky Tree Town”, including Sky Tree and a 31-story and a 7-story building, which will be used for office space and for the shopping center on 3.7ha of company property next to its headquarters in Sumida Ward.

About 300 shops and restaurants will open in the 52,000-square-meter shopping center. The floor space of the center is equivalent to half of the total floor space of small retail shops in Sumida Ward. Under the name of a “new ‘shitamachi’ shopping district,” the company anticipates 25 million visitors annually.

Some local retail shop owners had planned to move to the shopping center, anticipating that Sky Tree and the shopping center would have positive economic impact on their business.

However, Tobu Railway requires that tenants pay 8-15% of sales of more than 250,000 yen every month in addition to the monthly rent of 30,000-50,000 yen per 3.3 square meters. The monthly rent is very expensive compared to the average monthly rent for a shop in the nearby area, which is 10,000 yen per 3.3 square meters.

An executive member of a local shop owners’ group said, “No shop owners near Sky Tree can afford to establish a shop in the shopping center. Only Tobu will reap huge benefits from Sky Tree.” A man who has run a local shop for a long time said, “It is hard for local shop owners to create mutually beneficial relations with the shopping center.”

The group of Japanese Communist Party members of the Sumida Ward Assembly in the recent session of the ward assembly took up local shop owners’ demands and urged the ward government to work hard to get Tobu to establish a system which will enable local small shops to open shops in the shopping center.