Caretta Shiodome has become a ghost town… The reason for its revival is the lunch situation of “elite salarymen.

Carretta Shiodome, a commercial facility in Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, was bustling with activity when it first opened in 2002, but now there are few people in sight, and vacant tenants have become conspicuous.

Various media outlets have reported on this situation, and as a result, searches for Caretta Shiodome on social networking sites have produced a list of negative images, including “closed” and “bad.

Why has this situation arisen in spite of its convenient location in Shinbashi, Minato-ku? We decided to check whether there were really no people at the actual Caretta Shiodome.

Caretta Shiodome is directly connected to the station, and after being greeted by a stone with a tortoise shell motif, one is immediately confronted with the entrance to the commercial building.

The commercial building has two floors, the first basement and the second floor, and the first floor above ground is occupied by a theater. However, in spite of such a superb location, a look at the tenant signs reveals a conspicuous number of vacant tenants.

When one enters Caretta Shiodome, stores are sparsely occupied, but in some places, the area is like a shuttered street. We interviewed a person who operates a restaurant in this situation.

People say that Shiodome is dead, but that is not true. The number of customers is sparse at night, but at lunch time, we sometimes have customers waiting 20 minutes. I have the impression that the restaurant is crowded around noon with many businessmen.

The number of customers comes and goes depending on the time of day, but during lunchtime on weekdays, the restaurant is crowded with businessmen working in nearby offices.

Companies with headquarters in this area include Panasonic, Dentsu, NTV, Kyodo News, Toppan Forms, Nippon Express, and other super giants. When we asked these elite salarymen, who work for such super giants, what they were doing for lunch, they gave us a surprising answer.

I don’t come to the office very often because I mainly work remotely, but when I come to the head office, I often have lunch here. However, at lunch time, there are a lot of people here, so I sometimes have to go a little farther to eat.

While the restaurant is crowded with many people at lunchtime, it seems that the number of customers is not as large at other times of the day. One reason for this situation is that tenants have withdrawn from nearby buildings as Corona has shifted to remote work.

The stores, which had been thriving during the daytime with businessmen, were forced to withdraw because they could no longer pay their tenants when the businessmen stopped coming to work.

We asked a man who owns a soba restaurant in Caretta Shiodome what he thinks of this situation,

He said, “I am not worried. Unlike other buildings, the management company here is willing to stand by the restaurant and listen to us. The management company is willing to talk to the restaurant, which makes it easier to plan the business. And the management company is working hard to attract new restaurants here, little by little, so I think the number of restaurants will increase in the future.

He responded positively.

According to him, a new store opened yesterday, and there are other stores that have already decided to move in.

Recently, an increasing number of companies are doing away with remote work and requiring employees to come to work in principle, and it seems that more and more stores are opening in the office district to take advantage of the daytime demand. It may not be long before Shiodome is revived.