Section 1. Expanding the Building Management Business

4. The Completion of the Yaesu Daibiru Building

Japan began to experience tremendous economic growth in the 1960s, and with that growth, the demand for office space continued to expand rapidly. New, enormous office buildings were constantly being built in Osaka and Tokyo, yet there was still demand for more office space.

In order to meet that strong demand, our company made plans for the construction of new buildings. On September 12, 1963, we acquired a property 1,949 m² in size at 1-2 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo for 2.4 billion yen and a property 2,645 m² in size at 5 Koji-machi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo for 320 million yen from O.S.K. Lines. The first plan was to develop the lot at 1-2 Kyobashi. Based on a memorandum of understanding signed between our company and O.S.K. Lines, O.S.K. Lines demolished the O.S.K. Lines Building on the site in October 1963. Our company established the Tokyo New Building Construction Committee and proceeded with the plan in cooperation with Murano & Mori Architects, who was commissioned to design and supervise the project. In November of that year, we submitted an application for a construction permit to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and the following year, on March 23, 1964, the building was approved with the condition that construction begin within one year. The reason for the hurry is that the Building Standards Act had been revised on July 16, 1963, and the changes were going to take effect on April 1, 1964. This would allow the building to be exempted from district-based floor-area regulations and allow us to build an office building with nine aboveground floors and five underground floors as planned.