JR Central Towers

Twin supertall towers completed in December 1999 and fully opened in March 2000, rising 245 metres (office) and 226 metres (hotel) above Nagoya Station. Developed by JR Central, the complex held the record as the world's largest station building by floor area at the time of completion.

Use

Office tower

Area

Nakamura City, Nagoya

Completed

1999

Floors

53 above ground

Height

245 m

Total floor area

approx. 416,565 m²

Developer

Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central)

Architect

Sakakura Associates Architects and Engineers / Taisei Corporation

The Towers That Turned a Station into a Skyline

JR Central Towers was completed in December 1999 on the east (Sakuradori) side of Nagoya Station, developed by the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central). The complex consists of two towers: the Office Tower, rising 51 floors to 245.1 metres, and the Hotel Tower, standing 53 floors at 226.0 metres. Full operations began in March 2000. With a total floor area of 416,565 square metres, the complex was recorded at the time as the world’s largest station building by floor area.

Design was led by Sakakura Associates Architects and Engineers in collaboration with Taisei Corporation; construction involved a broad consortium that included Taisei Corporation, Kajima Corporation, Obayashi Corporation, Shimizu Corporation, Kumagai Gumi and Takenaka Corporation. The lower floors house JR Nagoya Takashimaya department store; the upper floors of the Hotel Tower are occupied by the Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel; and the Office Tower’s floors provide office space. The construction programme ran from a groundbreaking in August 1994 to topping-out in December 1998 — nearly five years of building directly above and around one of Japan’s busiest rail junctions.

The Building That Started Meieki’s Supertall Era

Before JR Central Towers opened, the area immediately around Nagoya Station had little in the way of high-rise architecture. The arrival of this twin-tower complex served as the catalyst for a sustained wave of supertall construction: Midland Square (2007), JP Tower Nagoya (2015) and JR Gate Tower (2017) all followed, each adding further height to the Meieki cluster.

The Office Tower’s height of 245.1 metres remains among the tallest in Nagoya today. Building twin towers directly over the station box — stacking a department store, a hotel and offices above the crossing point of the Shinkansen, conventional rail and the Nagoya Municipal Subway — was a then-unprecedented model of station-integrated urban development, one that recalibrated what a station building could be in Japan.

Summary

JR Central Towers completed in December 1999 and opened fully in March 2000, with an Office Tower of 51 floors and 245.1 metres and a Hotel Tower of 53 floors and 226.0 metres. Holding the world’s largest-station-building record at the time, the complex defined the east skyline of Nagoya Station and set in motion the high-rise cluster that characterises Meieki today. Stepping out of the Sakuradori exit and standing beneath the twin towers, with the Office Tower’s 245-metre profile overhead, gives an immediate sense of the ambition — and the permanence — of what JR Central placed at the centre of its network a quarter-century ago.

Related: JR Gate Tower

Looking for a hotel near Nagoya Station? Rakuten Travel lists properties across Meieki and greater Nagoya.