Japan Should Stop Building Skyscrapers After Quake, Mori Says
Quake Trauma Signals End to Tokyo High-Rise Building
Robert Gilhooly/Bloomberg
Akira Mori, president and chief executive officer of Mori Trust Co., stands for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Tokyo.
Akira Mori, president and chief executive officer of Mori Trust Co., stands for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. Photographer: Robert Gilhooly/Bloomberg
Quake Trauma Signals End to Tokyo High-Rise Building
Robert Gilhooly/Bloomberg
Akira Mori, president and chief executive officer of Mori Trust Co., pauses during an interview at the company's headquarters in Tokyo.
Akira Mori, president and chief executive officer of Mori Trust Co., pauses during an interview at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. Photographer: Robert Gilhooly/Bloomberg
Japan needs to stop building skyscrapers after the March earthquake traumatized office workers and residents in tall buildings, said billionaire Akira Mori, the president of Mori Trust Co.
“People realized that it’s difficult to live and work in high-rise buildings after this earthquake,” said Mori, who heads the country’s second-biggest privately held developer. “The buildings themselves are fine, but they swayed back and forth greatly. Some people got dizzy and that experience will probably leave a scar in their mind.”
Mori, Japan’s third-richest person, said the government should consider setting a standard height for new buildings at about 100 meters (328 feet), a level for so-called base- isolation systems that shift and reduce the energy of quakes to work best. An increase in tenants’ preference for office space on lower floors may also make taller buildings less attractive, he said.
Developers such as Mitsui Fudosan Co., Japan’s largest real estate company, have been erecting taller buildings and reclaiming land to utilize space in Tokyo since the postwar economic boom gathered pace in the late 1960s. That led to so- called pencil buildings, which sit on a small plot of land disproportionate to the building’s height.
“Instead of constructing pencil buildings, it’s better to jointly work with other real estate owners and developers to redevelopment larger projects,” said Mori. “That way, we can increase the value of real estate.”
Tallest in Japan
The Landmark Tower in Yokohama, a city south of Tokyo, is Japan’s tallest building at 296 meters and 58th in the world, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The 73-story building was developed by Mitsubishi Estate Co., the nation’s second-biggest developer, and completed in 1993. The world’s tallest building is the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The tallest building in central Tokyo, which includes the city’s five main wards, is the 248-meter Midtown Tower built by Mitsui Fudosan. The Tokyo Sky Tree, a broadcasting tower, will be the tallest structure in Japan at 634 meters when it is completed in December.
Tokyo suffered little damage to its buildings in the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake, Japan’s strongest. The nation has two magnitude-6.8 or larger earthquakes on average a year, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Even so, about 30 percent of 2,568 buildings in Japan are higher than 100 meters, or about 20 to 25 stories tall, according to estimates from Architectural Institute of Japan.
Chuo ward, in central Tokyo, in 1998 set a height limit for the Ginza commercial area at 56 meters to make it easier for redevelopment in the area.
Wider Floors
Wider floor space would make up for the loss in area if buildings were shorter, Mori said. The Japanese government in May last year set guidelines to increase the competitiveness of major cities by utilizing public land such as closing narrow streets and gathering fragmented plots of land for redevelopment.
Minato ward in central Tokyo, where Mori owns about 22 buildings, is expected to draw a zoning plan within a few months, providing an opportunity for Mori to voice his opinion, he said. The area includes Tokyo’s Toranomon Pastoral Hotel that Mori bought in 2007 for a record 231 billion yen ($2.82 billion).
The redevelopment of about 5,000 tsubo of land where the hotel is located may be taller than 100 meters, depending on the government’s zoning plan, said Mori, whose company also owns the 37-story Marunouchi Trust Tower Main, where the Shangri-La Hotel is, by Tokyo station. One tsubo, a standard measure of property area in Japan, is 3.3 square meters, or 35.5 square feet.
The biggest closely held developer in Japan is Mori Building Co., owned by Minoru Mori, Akira Mori’s brother.
Building Higher
A law introduced in 2002 in Japan relaxed height restriction by allowing developers to construct taller buildings in business districts by borrowing assumed air space in nearby areas. Office supply in Tokyo doubled to 607,143 tsubo the following year, according to Miki Shoji Co., a privately held office brokerage company.
“Developers have focused on high-rise buildings up until recently,” said Takeshi Yoshida, executive director at Mori, in the interview. “It’s hard to say about profitability of those buildings now, with some tenants preferring space on lower floors after the earthquake.”
Global Trend
The trend toward lower buildings is taking hold overseas. In London, Commercial Estates Group Ltd., a privately held developer, said it will review a plan to build a 63-story property adjacent to Canary Wharf. Hammerson Plc, a real estate investment trust that owns seven London office buildings, in January abandoned its design for a 32-story tower and block in the City in favor of a 15-floor office complex.
The 36-story Kasumigaseki Building, completed by Mitsui Fudosan in 1968, was one of the first high-rise office buildings in Tokyo, at 147 meters, according to the company’s website.
The March 11 temblor and subsequent tsunami crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s nuclear plants, forcing the utility to introduce rolling blackouts that stopped elevators, making it harder for residents and office workers on higher floors.
“It’s time to rethink Japan’s focus on growth since the war,” said Mori, ranked by Forbes magazine in March as the world’s 143rd richest person with an estimated family fortune of $6.8 billion. “I don’t see the point of going higher and higher.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Kathleen Chu in Tokyo at Kchu2@bloomberg.net; Katsuyo Kuwako in Tokyo at kkuwako@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net
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