Ginza Komatsu is pleased to welcome UNIQLO into its entire East Wing, from floors one through twelve. UNIQLO brings apparel to the world as highly finished parts to facilitate an overall look. Its clothes are made based on the values of the people who wear them. They are clothes for all of the people of the world. With a sprawling floor space of some 4,950 m2 (1,500 tsubo), UNIQLO’s newest and largest global flagship store, UNIQLO Ginza, is the place for shoppers to enjoy the best and most seasonal apparel items from Japan’s leading clothing retail chain. The floors are arranged by category, from men’s and women’s to kids’ and baby clothing, and UT T-shirts, and in addition to offering a full ranges of UNIQLO product lines, the store can also cater to a wide range of people, with 100 of the 520 store employees coming from other countries. A total of fifteen native speakers covering six languages—Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, French, and Spanish—are on hand at all times keeping an eye out to serve the needs of tourists from abroad. The ground floor, dubbed the “Welcome Gate,” features a two-level atrium with twenty-one rotating mannequins. This space exhibits the most recommended looks of the season, changing the product lines on a monthly basis in conjunction with the UNIQLO Ginza Special floor on the twelfth floor. The concierge desk on the ground level is staffed with six concierges, providing a full range of customer service, including information on the store and surrounding area. The Men’s and Women’s Season Selection floors on the second and third levels offer featured items on sale at that particular time. The women’s floors—Women’s Smart Casual, Women’s Casual, and Women’s Inner (undergarments)—take up floors four, five and six, respectively. UNIQLO’s first floor devoted to children and...

UNIQLO operates out of our East Wing, and Dover Street Market Ginza COMME des GARÇONS out of the West Wing. The combination of UNIQLO, which is expanding from Japan into the international market, and London-based Dover Street Market, which is headed by Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, is a study in contrasts, with one offering ‘real clothing’ with standards that reassure, and the other offering a one-of-a-kind concept store that is distinctly individual. These two companies became global brands by different approaches and have completely different characters. However, both are stores that Japan can be proud of on the global stage, with clearly-defined corporate identities, contemporary appeal, and fresh brands. Both allied themselves with Komatsu due to their desire to open top-rate stores in Ginza. Thus, two stores came into being in one location in Ginza, both global but with completely different perspectives. Rather than simply making a box and filling it with tenants, we chose to believe in our tenants’ strengths, modifying the box and promoting the building as a single brand. We take pride that this has been successful in that Ginza is now making the world aware of a new approach and set of values for the commercial real estate leasing industry. Ginza Komatsu adopted a design that intuitively demonstrates the vitality and energy of the two brands. We believe that customers going back and forth between these two stores using the ground-level passage and the bridges on the fourth and seventh floors are sure to enjoy the interaction between these brands. We at Komatsu, which has upheld the motto of being a store that sells dreams, believe that both brands, which are continuously innovating, will continue to keep customers happy. Home to many jostling stores—both old and new, domestic and foreign—Ginza is a town that embraces diversity....

Komatsu first encountered COMME des GARÇONS founder Rei Kawakubo well over two decades ago. At the time, it was running Komatsu Store, and in the process of considering a wide array of potential tenants to come and set up shop at its property. COMME des GARÇONS was one of the candidates, but, unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out, so those plans ended up going by the wayside. When we went about restarting the business as Ginza Komatsu, we met with Ms. Kawakubo again, and it was decided that COMME des GARÇONS would set up Dover Street Market Ginza COMME des GARÇONS in the West Wing, where the former annex building once stood. Dover Street Market is a concept store under the direction of Ms. Kawakubo. It has its main store in London. Before coming to Ginza, it had a shop in the ZOZOTOWN fashion online mall and at one time opened a popup store in Aoyama, Tokyo, but Dover Street Market Ginza COMME des GARÇONS is the first permanent brick-and-mortar store the company has set up in Japan. Many in Japan appear to be inclined towards fads, and observing the fluctuations in popularity of even one fashion brand is enough to make one’s head spin. Ginza Komatsu, however, has looked for tenants, and customers, with whom we can foster long-term relationships. This is simply because the relationship we have with our tenants is of a long-term nature, and likewise that with our customers is also long-term, not transient. For we believe that we can satisfy our customers better through building ongoing relationships with them. Dover Street Market Ginza COMME des GARÇONS consists of six floors, and is based on the worldview of each featured brand, beginning with COMME des GARÇONS’ own brands. Louis Vuitton’s concept store on the third floor...

Considering the issues surrounding modern-day society, there is no need to stress the importance of being environmentally friendly. Indispensable to modern-day life, electricity and other forms of energy have brought about great abundance and change to our way of life. On the other hand, however, the scarcity of resources has now become a global problem. The world population is said to have reached seven billion in 2011, and consumption of resources will likely continue to increase as the population grows. Some reports claim that human lifestyles already require 1.5 times the earth’s resources, and that that figure will increase to twice the earth’s resources in 2030. At any rate, there can be no doubt that humanity today is continuing to use up the resources that the earth has produced over the course of its 4.6 billion-year lifespan. It goes without saying that we cannot sustain today’s lifestyles on into the future without making some changes. In addition to providing an environment shoppers can enjoy in comfort, Komatsu believes that we need to keep in mind energy resources and the global environment, and act intelligently, shrewdly using only that which is required. One of the measures we’ve taken at Ginza Komatsu is to install energy-saving escalators that slow down when they are being used by only a few people. We’ve also outfitted the emergency stairwells with sensors that detect the presence of people so that the lighting comes on automatically only when necessary. In order to contribute to the greening of the city, we have installed a roof garden. Striving to reduce garbage, collection fees for garbage coming from tenants and offices have been levied based on weight, with waste being separated into the following sixteen categories: combustible and non-combustible waste, raw garbage, cardboard, bottles, cans, plastic (PET) bottles, Styrofoam, office...

Ginza Komatsu is now under construction. During that process, the construction site is under the control of the project’s site supervisor, Makoto Kaneko. The Ginza Komatsu building will probably be Mr. Kaneko’s last professional project, so perhaps this job was predestined for him. He told us about his role as site supervisor, and about his thoughts on this being his last project. “The main work of the site supervisor begins with organization. Putting together the team for the project is the first job. When I talk about the team, I’m including subcontractors and other firms as well as the people who are directly involved. Construction of a project of this size requires large numbers of companies and individuals—a surprisingly large number. For this building, there are about 80 companies, and at the peak, there will be as many as 400 people working on the project. The role of the site supervisor is to ensure that everyone works together, make sure that the construction proceeds safely, and keep the project on schedule. To succeed, it’s essential to put a lot of effort in assembling a good team. By ‘good,’ I don’t just mean that the members have to be proficient. Skills are of course important, but over the course of a long project, it is always ‘people’ who make the difference. For that reason, the most important factor when putting together a team is to take a good look at the people. I am constantly reminded that it is people—and their attitudes—that make a project succeed.” Ensuring that everyone on the construction site works together may sound simple, but in reality, making sure that things proceed smoothly is no easy task. According to Mr. Kaneko, the most important qualities for a site supervisor are to have the project (and the team)...

On November 10, 2010, we held a framework completion ceremony (jotoshiki in Japanese) at the construction site where work is currently in progress. A Japanese framework completion ceremony is a ritual that is performed for the space where a building will stand. The ceremony has its origins in the fact that Japanese buildings are made from wood. The construction of a wooden structure starts by digging up the soil and installing the foundation. The framework completion ceremony—the Japanese jotoshiki means “ridge-beam raising ceremony”—was conducted at the end of this part of the construction process at the time of fitting the roof beam, when the ridge-beam or ridgepole would be raised and put in place. The ritual combined elements of a purification ceremony together with festivities. On this occasion, we conducted a framework completion ceremony not in order to raise a ridge-beam into place, because we weren’t constructing a wooden building, but rather in order to mark the completion of the steel frame’s foundation work. With a modern building, the steel frame is erected, instead of a ridge-beam. We watched silently as the final parts of the steel frame were raised high into place. During this time, we gave thanks for the fact that construction had progressed thus far without incident and prayed that for continued safety during the rest of construction. 　In addition to its obvious ceremonial significance, a framework completion ceremony provides a good opportunity for the workers laboring on site to gain renewed focus and motivation. Staying focused on construction work over the course of a long period of construction without losing one’s concentration is not as easy as you might think. So this ceremony also serves an important role as an opportunity for the workers to renew their commitment to the project and refocus their efforts. It...

Komatsu Store is making a new start in preparation for the reopening of its new buildings, launching a blog in advance of the main website. The purpose of this blog is to make use of the time during construction of our new buildings to provide information to our customers while they are temporarily unable to shop at our store. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working hard to ensure that our store opens soon in order to better serve your needs. We hope these blog entries provide you with a better understanding of Ginza Komatsu. Until the new Ginza Komatsu opens, this blog will be published as a record of Komatsu Store’s company history. We hope you find it interesting and informative. This blog will introduce Ginza Komatsu to those who have not yet shopped with us as well as provide existing Ginza Komatsu customers with new insights into Komatsu Store. With each new post, we plan to publish lots of different information, including the latest news from the construction site, Komatsu Store company history, and sundry stories and anecdotes. We hope you’ll enjoy learning more about Ginza Komatsu with each blog post. The symbol at the top of this page is the Komatsu Store logo used by Ginza Komatsu. Created in 1946 when the company was established, the logo has adorned the Ginza store ever since and depicts a small pine tree, derived from the “Komatsu” in the company name, which means “small pine tree” in Japanese. Featuring this logo, which has represented the company for over fifty years, in our first blog post is our way of declaring that Ginza Komatsu will continue to provide faithful Komatsu Store service that is as steadfast and unchanging as the logo. We feel Komatsu Store’s qualities are represented best by...

Do you know where the Komatsu Store name comes from? The name of the company founder is Takeo Kosaka, so it would have been perfectly understandable if the business had been named “Kosaka Store.” So why is it called “Komatsu” instead of “Kosaka?” The name, Komatsu Store, as it turns out, has its origins in a restaurant called Matsumotoro, with the “ro” at the end of the name indicating that it was a restaurant. So wouldn’t “Matsumoto Store” have been a good name? So why isn’t it called Matsumoto Store? Well, taking “Matsumoto” directly from Matsumotoro to create the name Matsumoto Store would not have made for a very novel start. New beginnings require a new name. So a new twist was added. We wanted to show our gratitude to the many customers who had given us their patronage at Matsumotoro, to carry on part of the name so as to leave a trace of the former business. So “matsu” (pine tree) was taken from Matsumotoro. Then, to bestow a sense of the founder’s personal responsibility and individuality as well as infuse the name with the founder’s essence, “ko” (small) was taken from Kosaka, the founder’s family name. Thus, the new name Komatsu was born by combining “ko” from Kosaka with “matsu” from Matsumotoro. As unorthodox as its origins may seem, the name is true to the essence of today’s Komatsu Store, which values the present as well as cherishing tradition and continuing to show gratitude for past patronage. At the time that Matsumotoro transformed into Komatsu Store, Ginza was booming in step with postwar reconstruction. Komatsu Store timed its business opening to coincide with the Ginza Reconstruction Festival, giving palpable expression to our love for the neighborhood and to the fact that Komatsu Store owes its existence to Ginza....