Tokyo, March 10, 2005 -- The now officially named"Shin-Marunouchi Building", the next step in Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd.’s (MEC) incremental redevelopment of Marunouchi, dubbed the Marunouchi Redevelopment Project, will break ground for the beginning of construction on March 15.

The plan was put into motion to make the Marunouchi District more open and interactive than ever before. Construction of the Shin-Marunouchi Building represents the final part of "Stage One" of project, which began with the construction of the Marunouchi Building. MEC will now strive to make the Shin-Marunouchi Building, which will be built across the street from the present Marunouchi Building, an attractive, functional and suitable site which represents Marunouchi, Tokyo, and Japan as a whole.

The building, conceptually designed by Hopkins Architects, is expected to be completed in April 2007, will offer 195,000 square meters of floors space and will be 198 meters tall with four floors underground, 38 floors above ground. In fact, the buildings base height is 31 meters, the same level as surrounding buildings, which is meant to maintain the historic appearance of what the Marunouchi District formerly looked like.

The Shin-Marunouchi building, outfitted with the most advanced IT infrastructure and environmentally friendly technology, is expected to offer more than 100 retail stores, restaurants and specialty shops. And, as is the case with many of Mitsubishi Estate’s buildings, the Shin-Marunouchi building will have underground pedestrian access to other buildings in the area and directly into Tokyo Station.

Once the first stage of the redevelopment project is successfully completed, MEC will focus its attention on the second stage of the project, which is set to begin in 2008 with the reconstruction of the Mitsubishi Shoji, Furukawa and Marunouchi Yaesu Buildings.