Akihabara UDX

A 22-story, approximately 99-meter mixed-use office building completed in 2006. Developed by NTT Urban Development as the centrepiece of the Akihabara Crossfield redevelopment, it transformed the city's famed electronics district into a technology and business hub.

Use

Office tower

Area

Chiyoda City

Completed

2006

Floors

22 above ground, 3 below

Height

99.72 m

Developer

NTT Urban Development

A New Face for the Electronics Town

Step out of Akihabara Station’s Electric Town Exit and a large glass-and-concrete building lines the elevated railway. Akihabara UDX — completed in 2006 — stands 22 floors above ground and three below, rising to a height of approximately 99.72 metres. Developed by NTT Urban Development, it emerged as the centrepiece of the Akihabara Crossfield redevelopment project, on land that once housed electrical component dealers and disused warehouses.

“UDX” stands for Urban Development eXperiment, a name that signals the building’s ambition to be more than a conventional office tower. The lower floors hold restaurants, cafés, and event spaces, while upper floors serve as large-format office accommodation — a mix of uses that reflects how Tokyo’s major redevelopments of the 2000s approached the tension between business function and street-level vitality.

The Crossfield Experiment

The site on which Akihabara UDX stands was once managed by the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, heir to the assets of the dissolved Japanese National Railways. Planning for the Akihabara Crossfield project began in the early 2000s, combining public and private interests to redevelop this large tract of underutilised railway land in central Tokyo.

The project carried a national policy dimension as well: Akihabara was designated as a hub for information technology industries, and the building was designed to attract technology companies, corporate showrooms, and R&D offices. The neighbourhood’s character shifted — from a street of radio components and small electronics shops toward a cluster of technology firms — though the underlying identity of the “Electric Town” endured in the alleys nearby.

Summary

Akihabara UDX was completed in 2006, with 22 floors above ground and a height of approximately 99.72 metres. Developed by NTT Urban Development, it anchors the Akihabara Crossfield project and embodies the early-2000s ambition to reinvent a famous district as a business destination. Walking the lower floors of the building, you can feel the overlap between the old electronics town and the new technology city it has become.

Related: Tokyo International Forum / Marunouchi Building (Maru Building)

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