Takashimaya Times Square

A large commercial complex opened in 1996 on the site of Shinjuku's former freight yard. With Takashimaya's Shinjuku store as its anchor, it transformed the south exit of JR Shinjuku Station into a thriving hub.

Use

Office tower

Area

Shibuya City

Completed

1996

Floors

14 above ground, 4 below

Height

77 m

Developer

Rail City East Development

Architect

Nikken Sekkei

A freight yard reborn as Shinjuku’s south anchor

Step out of JR Shinjuku Station’s south exit and a large commercial building rises immediately ahead: Takashimaya Times Square. The formal building name is Times Square Building, and the complex opened on 4 October 1996. Designed by Nikken Sekkei, the 14-storey structure stands on the site of the former Shinjuku Freight Yard, developed by Rail City East Development — a subsidiary of the national railway clearance agency that managed the privatisation of Japan National Railways. The address, Sendagaya 5-chome in Shibuya City, reflects a geographic quirk: a building universally known as part of Shinjuku’s south exit that sits administratively in an entirely different ward.

For decades the south side of Shinjuku Station was the quiet exit that most people passed through without stopping. The arrival of Takashimaya’s flagship store, together with Tokyu Hands and Kinokuniya Bookstore under the same roof, pulled foot traffic toward the south in a way it had never experienced before. Within a few years the opening of Odakyu Southern Tower and JR Shinjuku Miraina Tower nearby completed the transformation: the south exit became a distinct district in its own right, and Shinjuku gained what is sometimes called its fourth face.

How one building reshaped a station exit

The redevelopment of the Shinjuku freight yard was one of the largest postwar land releases in central Tokyo. Rail City East Development managed the conversion from industrial use to a mixed commercial and business programme, and the scale of that conversion was unusual: Takashimaya’s Shinjuku store was the last major new department-store opening within the twenty-three wards of Tokyo, arriving at a moment when the department-store format was already under pressure from changing retail habits.

Nikken Sekkei’s design assembled the programme into a compact rectilinear mass, with internal atria connecting floors and an orientation that respects the pedestrian axis leading from the station concourse. The building shows its age in places, but the footfall it generates remains extraordinary, and the south-exit district it helped create has attracted every subsequent layer of development in the area.

Summary

Takashimaya Times Square was completed in 1996 — 14 floors above ground, roughly 77 metres tall. A former freight yard became one of Tokyo’s busiest retail corners, and a quiet station exit became a destination. Walking the south exit end-to-end — from the concourse through the bookshop and out past the adjacent towers — is a compact lesson in how postwar infrastructure land gets reborn as urban fabric. Come and judge for yourself.

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