Nikkei Building

A 31-story office tower completed in April 2009 in Otemachi, Chiyoda City, standing 155 meters tall. The first phase of the Otemachi Chain-Type Urban Regeneration Project, built alongside the JA Building and Keidanren Kaikan. Designed by Nikken Sekkei, it serves as the Tokyo headquarters of Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei).

Use

Office tower

Area

Chiyoda City

Completed

2009

Floors

31 above ground, 3 below

Height

155 m

Total floor area

approx. 74,751 m²

Developer

Otemachi Development

Architect

Nikken Sekkei

The Starting Point of Otemachi’s Transformation

At 1-3-7 Otemachi, Chiyoda City, facing toward Kitanomaru, the Nikkei Building stands as a composed presence in one of Tokyo’s most intensively redeveloped neighborhoods. Completed in April 2009, it rises 31 floors above ground and three below, reaching a height of 155 meters. The building was designed by Nikken Sekkei and constructed by Shimizu Corporation. It houses the Tokyo headquarters of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun — Japan’s principal economic newspaper — consolidating the editorial, production, and business operations of the Nikkei group under one address in central Otemachi.

The exterior is a vertical glass curtain wall, clear and functional, that fits into the Otemachi skyline without assertion. At 155 meters, it held its own against the towers of its era, and today it reads as one of the earlier members of the current high-rise generation along this stretch of 1-chome Otemachi.

The First Phase of a Chain Redevelopment

What gives this building its significance in Tokyo’s urban history is its role as the first phase of the Otemachi Chain-Type Urban Regeneration Project. The mechanism works as follows: the government acquires land, enables new construction by private parties, and uses the proceeds from the eventual land sale to fund the next acquisition in a rolling cycle. The Nikkei Building was completed alongside the JA Building and the Keidanren Kaikan in 2009, marking the moment the chain began to turn.

That starting point proved consequential. The second phase — Otemachi Financial City, with its North and South towers — completed in 2012. The third phase — Grand Cube, with Hoshinoya Tokyo — followed in 2016. A fourth phase extended the renewal further. Walking from the Nikkei Building toward the newer towers along the same block, the progress of those successive phases can be read in the gradual change of building ages and materials — a compressed timeline of how the district remade itself across a single decade.

Summary

The Nikkei Building was completed in April 2009 — 31 floors above ground, standing 155 meters tall. Designed by Nikken Sekkei and built by Shimizu Corporation, it was the opening move in the Otemachi chain redevelopment that reshaped an entire district block by block over the following decade. The Otemachi and Tokyo Station area offers a wide range of hotels, making it easy to base a full day’s walk around the towers that the chain produced — starting here, at the building where it all began.

Related: Otemachi Financial City / The Otemachi Tower / JA Building