For the moment, it remains an enormous no man's land in the heart of Tokyo, with the only signs of life the numerous cranes, prefab huts and foundations that indicate construction projects are under way.
The 31-hectare Shiodome district, the former freight yard adjacent to Shimbashi Station, which opened nearly 130 years ago as Japan's first train station, has been vacant for over a decade since a freight depot closed in 1986.
Over the next few years, however, a cluster of more than a dozen skyscrapers up to 215-meters tall will appear. If all goes according to plan, 10 of them will have sprung up by 2003.