Mitsubishi Estate Co. completed reconstruction work Tuesday on a historic commercial building in Tokyo's Marunouchi district.
The reconstructed Marunouchi Building, scheduled to open Friday, will house about 50 companies, including information technology and financial firms. It has 37 floors, four basement floors, and stands about 180 meters high. Its total floor space is about 160,000 sq. meters.
"We want the new building not only to respond to business needs, but also to create culture and values from interaction between companies and people," remarked Mitsubishi Estate President Shigeru Takagi during a ceremony to mark the building's completion.
Mitsubishi Estate, which owns the building, announced it would rebuild the aging complex in 1995. Reconstruction work started in 1999, 76 years after it was first erected.
The renovated building houses a "business zone" between the ninth and 34th floors. These floors are occupied by companies that include software developer Konami Co. and the newly launched Mitsubishi Securities Co.
The lower floors are mainly occupied by restaurants and shops. On the seventh and eighth floors is an "interactive zone" that consists of six multimedia-compatible conference rooms.
Until the end of the month, the seventh floor will host a display of pictures and profiles of 400 leading contributors to the cultural development of Tokyo since the start of the Edo Period (1603-1867).
