Daiwa House-led group opens Osaka's 29-storey Yodoyabashi Gate Tower, most of its shops already trading
A Daiwa House-led group opened the 29-storey Yodoyabashi Gate Tower in Osaka on 9 July with 26 of its planned 29 shops already trading — a finished street level on day one, while the office floors above fill on a schedule the developers haven't disclosed.
A 29-storey tower connected directly to Yodoyabashi Station opened in central Osaka on 9 July, with 26 of its planned 29 ground-and-basement shops already trading, according to a release from the group behind it — Daiwa House Industry, Sumitomo Corporation, Kansai Electric Real Estate Development and the Yodoyabashi Station West District Urban Redevelopment Association.
The Yodoyabashi Gate Tower rises 135 metres over Osaka's Kitahama district, with 29 floors above ground and two below on a 7,206 sqm site, for a total floor area of 132,424 sqm, the release said. It connects directly into Yodoyabashi Station, an interchange for the Osaka Metro Midosuji Line and the Keihan Main Line. Nikken Sekkei designed the building, Obayashi Corporation built it, and Daiwa Life Next will manage it.
Retail runs from the first basement level to the second floor, with food, retail and service tenants filling 26 of the 29 planned shops — around 90% — from opening day; the remaining three are due to open in autumn 2026, the developers said. Office floors occupy levels three to nine and eleven to twenty-seven; the release did not disclose an office leasing rate.
The structure behind the project — a private developer group and a landowner-formed urban redevelopment association jointly rebuilding a station-front block — is Japan's standard route for large city-centre schemes too fragmented for any single owner to redevelop alone. Getting close to 90% of the retail floor let and trading on opening day, rather than staggering tenants in over months, lets the tower present a finished, busy street level immediately, even as the office floors above fill on their own, undisclosed schedule.
Redevelopment association chairman Koji Eguchi said the opening was not an end point but a new start, and that he hoped the tower would help lead the district's development and become a landmark that draws people together, according to the release. What the project has not put a number on is the one that will matter most to Osaka's office market: how much of those 25 floors of office space is actually let.