Section 2. Our Buildings Reopen

Amidst these circumstances, given the company’s prospects for renovating the Daibiru Buildings and the ability to conduct a stable building management business thanks to the industry no longer being subject to rent controls as result of the Rent Control Act revision, the company judged that favorable demand for office space would continue and began investigating construction sites for a new building. One of the properties that caught the company’s attention was in the Dojima area of Osaka. That area had been home to the warehouses of feudal clans since the Tokugawa period, and a rice market had spontaneously been created for buying and selling the rice stored in the warehouses. Eventually, this had led to the establishment of the Dojima Rice Exchange, which is believed to have been the origin for commodity exchanges in Japan and the world’s first full-scale futures trading market. After the Meiji Restoration, this market grew out of the Dojima Rice Exchange to become the Osaka Dojima Rice and Oil Exchange, the Osaka Dojima Rice Exchange, and the Osaka Grain Exchange. This marketplace played an important role in the Japanese economy but was shut down in 1939. After the war, it was requisitioned by the US military and used as a detention center for stationed troops. The surrounding areas had burnt to the ground in air raids. There were no prospects for the requisitioning being lifted, but our company saw the property’s potential and decided to acquire it.

The acquisition plan was carried out in two phases. The first phase covered the eastern portion of the land to be purchased and was completed by June 1951. The remaining western portion of the land was acquired in the second phase of the project, but the landowners were reluctant to sell due to rumors that the requisitioning of the land would be lifted, and land prices in Osaka soared after the requisitioning was actually lifted on April 28, 1953, making the acquisition process a difficult one.

Despite the various challenges facing the company, they were able to acquire the land (located at 1-25 Dojimahamadori and 1-1-1 Dojimanaka, Kita-ku, Osaka), which had a total area of 13,346 m².