Relationship between urban development and office mobility in the Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 area: Application of the filtering process

Abstract

This study discusses the relationship between urban development and office mobility in the Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 area by examing the attributes of tenants who moved out the existing business area of Yokohama to the adjacent, newly developed Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 area and attributes of those tenants who moved into the existing business area to fill the vacancies created. An office building must be new, close to the central business district (CBD), and spacious to ensure high demand. Given that the number of office workers is not expected to rise soon, the number of tenant companies will not increase either. It has been confirmed that tenant companies in existing second- and third-tier office buildings move into new buildings with better conditions. Second- and third-tier buildings accept new tenant companies from fourth- and fifth-tier office buildings, creating a so-called chain migration. Many office buildings that have opened recently and have drawn a lot of attention will maintain high occupancy rates, while many old, small and medium-sized office buildings will find it difficult to hold tenant companies, ending up with high vacancy rates. Office locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area will be more clearly polarized. On one side, there will be new, large-scale office buildings, which will maintain high occupancy rates. On the other, there will be old, small and medium-sized office buildings, which will have difficulty in securing tenant companies they need to operate. The number of retirements will reach a peak in 2010, the number of office workers will decline significantly, and the oversupply of office space will become more serious. This effect will hit existing office buildings hard, and they will experience high vacancy rates. It is important to address and deal with this issue immediately to prevent the decline of the CBD. Office buildings located in the areas convenient for commuting to the CBD, for example, need to be converted into housing. Nowadays, more people want to move into the CBD. A higher demand for these converted buildings can be expected. An immediate review of related laws and regulations, however, will be necessary to facilitate the conversion of office space into housing use.