Shiodome City Center

A 36-storey mixed-use tower completed in 2003 in the Shiodome Siosaite district. Jointly developed by Sumitomo Corporation and NTT Urban Development, its upper floors house the Conrad Tokyo hotel, making it one of the most visible landmarks of the former freight-yard redevelopment.

Use

Office tower

Area

Minato City

Completed

2003

Floors

36 above ground, 4 below

Height

171 m

Developer

Sumitomo Corporation / NTT Urban Development

Architect

Nikken Sekkei

Shiodome’s luxury landmark

At 1-5-2 Higashi-Shimbashi, a 36-storey tower rises 171 metres over the Shiodome Siosaite district: the Shiodome City Center. Completed in 2003 and designed by Nikken Sekkei, the building was jointly developed by Sumitomo Corporation and NTT Urban Development. In July 2005 the Conrad Tokyo opened on floors 28 through 37, bringing an international luxury hotel brand to one of Tokyo’s newest high-rise districts and giving the building a skyline identity that its office floors alone could never have achieved.

NTT Urban Development’s involvement is worth noting. A subsidiary of the national telecommunications company that manages substantial property holdings across Japan, its co-development of a major Shiodome tower illustrates how diversified infrastructure companies positioned themselves as urban developers during the 2000s redevelopment boom. Alongside Sumitomo Corporation — one of Japan’s general trading houses — the project brought together two types of large corporate capital that had historically operated in very different sectors.

Conrad Tokyo and the hotel that defined Shiodome

Before Osaka Station City or Azabudai Hills, Shiodome Siosaite was the redevelopment that showed central Tokyo what large-scale post-industrial land conversion could produce. Each of the district’s towers was assigned to a different developer, and the varied outcomes — the Dentsu Building by Jean Nouvel, the Shiodome Tower by Kajima, the media-company tower by Kyodo News — gave the district an architectural variety unusual for a single project phase.

Shiodome City Center sits close to the middle of that range in height: shorter than Nouvel’s 213-metre Dentsu Building, but taller than several of its neighbours. Its contribution to the skyline is significant primarily because of the Conrad’s presence; a building that functions as both an office address and a hotel landmark occupies a different kind of urban attention from a pure office tower. Guests staying on the upper floors look out over Hamarikyu Garden, Tokyo Bay, and the grid of towers that surrounds them.

Summary

Shiodome City Center was completed in 2003: 36 floors, 171 metres. Developed by Sumitomo Corporation and NTT Urban Development, designed by Nikken Sekkei, it sits at the centre of one of Tokyo’s most dramatic early-2000s redevelopment zones. The Conrad Tokyo on its upper floors has made the building a destination in its own right. Walk from Shimbashi Station toward the waterfront, look up at the cluster of towers, and you’ll understand what it meant for a former freight yard to become, in barely a decade, one of the densest concentrations of office and hotel space in the city.

Visiting Shiodome or Shimbashi? Find hotels in the area on Rakuten Travel.