JAXA’s small rocket SS520 No. 4, scheduled for launch on the morning of the 11th from the Uchinoura Space Center (Kimotsuki, Kagoshima), was postponed for weather, but the photo above is not a rocket pad.
The place is the demolition site of Marubeni’s headquarters across Hakusan-dori from Palaceside (Otemachi 1-4-2, Chiyoda Ward). The building being taken down is SRC, 16 stories above and four below, 57,653.61 square meters in total; cranes appeared after the new year and work is now in earnest. Completed in 1972, it has served more than 45 years. Younger than Palaceside Build
ing, finished in 1966. It feels a little wasteful.
Demolition started September 30, 2016; Marubeni people had already moved to Tokyo Nihonbashi Tower (Nihonbashi 2-7-1, Chuo Ward). Demolition does not mean wrecking at once. At first they seemed to sort fixtures and strip the interior; for a while lights were on at night as work went on (photo at right).
The whole site is fenced; as in the six-photo set below, demolition scaffolding went up on the building in stages and only after the new year was it fully covered.
Demolition is scheduled through the end of September this year — a full year’s major work. The old building used the carcinogen asbestos, and above all this is a downtown office district, so you cannot blast it down in an instant as in foreign footage. Careful work takes time.
The Marubeni HQ site is 6,119.92 square meters. In the Edo period it was the mansion of the Hitotsubashi house, one of the Gosankyo that produced the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, and others. In 1964 (Showa 39),
when the Japan Meteorological Agency built a new home next door under the then government-office plan and moved, the land was sold to the private sector.
According to Kensetsu Kogyo Shimbun (September 5, 2016), “This area is commercial zoning, with coverage 80 percent and FAR 900 percent as the ceiling. Under the ward’s district plan, building height is limited to 100 meters (115 including structures); as a contribution to the area, a plaza is to be newly made on the south of the site, and an attractive space of greenery and amenity formed along the Nihonbashi River on the north.” After demolition,
the main work on the new HQ is expected to begin, but “completion is aimed at 2020; at this point ‘details of the plan are undecided’ (PR). Designer and contractor have not been announced.”
At the west edge of the Marubeni site, in a green corner facing Hakusan-dori, there is a stone marker and sign for “Hitotsubashi Tokugawa family mansion site” (photo at right). A photo of it was posted on the site fence (photo below), red circle. The contractor said it is still in its original place, fenced so the work will not damage it. When demolition ends and the new building starts it will have to move, but when and where are undecided.
