Sendai Trust Tower

Completed in 2010, this 37-story, 180 m mixed-use tower is the tallest building in the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions. Rising beside Ichibancho, Sendai's main shopping street, it integrates offices, retail, and a Westin Hotel into a single slender shaft.

Use

Office tower

Area

Aoba Ward, Sendai

Completed

2010

Floors

37 above ground, 2 below

Height

180 m

Developer

Mori Trust

Architect

Matsuda Hirata Architects

Tohoku’s Tallest Tower

Sendai Trust Tower stands at 4-6-1 Ichibancho, Aoba Ward, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture. The building was completed in April 2010, developed by Mori Trust and designed by Matsuda Hirata Architects. It rises 37 stories above ground with two basement floors to a height of 180 m, making it the tallest building in the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions at the time of its completion — a distinction it has held since.

The site sits at the edge of Ichibancho, Sendai’s main shopping and commercial corridor, within walking distance of Sendai Station. The broader development, branded “Sendai Trust City,” surrounds the tower with complementary low-rise facilities, creating a new urban hub on the western fringe of the city center. Mori Trust — a major national developer known for high-end mixed-use projects in Tokyo and other cities — brought to Sendai the same integrated approach it had applied elsewhere, vertically stacking different uses into a single efficient footprint.

Three Programs in One Tower

The building’s interior is organized by altitude. Lower floors house retail and commercial uses at street level. Middle floors provide office space. The upper floors, from the 26th to the 37th, are occupied by the Westin Hotel Sendai — marking the first time the Westin brand entered the Tohoku region. Hotel guests at that height can look across the flat Sendai basin to the Ou Mountains to the west and, on a clear day, see as far as the Pacific coast to the east.

At 180 m, the tower is modest by the standards of Tokyo’s tallest skyscrapers, but Sendai’s relatively flat urban fabric amplifies its presence. The slender shaft is visible from much of the city center and from the Jozenji-dori boulevard that connects the station area with the cultural zone farther west. On a clear day it serves as a true wayfinding landmark, readable from neighborhoods that never had a comparable vertical reference before 2010.

The tower was designed to anchor a part of Sendai that was undergoing active urban renewal, and in that role it has succeeded: the Sendai Trust City complex has become a standard reference point for visitors and residents alike when navigating the downtown area.

Summary

Completed in 2010 at 37 stories and 180 m, Sendai Trust Tower is the tallest structure in Tohoku and Hokkaido, a mixed-use landmark that weaves retail, offices, and a luxury hotel into a single tower. Matsuda Hirata Architects’ design gives Sendai a vertical accent that the city’s low-rise streetscape had long lacked. Visit Ichibancho and look north to see the tower rising above the shopping arcades — a straightforward illustration of how a single building can reset the perceived scale of an entire regional city.