Shibuya’s $13bn Redevelopment and Japan’s Urban Future

From crossing to connected city

From the 230 meter rooftop deck of Shibuya Scramble Square, Tokyo stretches in every direction as a valley of towers, rail lines, and neon. Two hundred thirty meters below, a tide of people moves across the famous scramble crossing that featured in Lost in Translation. The same vantage reveals a skyline filled with cranes as the district pushes ahead with the most ambitious rebuild in its history.

This program is now entering its closing phase. By 2030, a new multi level pedestrian network will link Shibuya Station in all directions and make travel across the district intuitive. In 2031, two new Shibuya Scramble Square towers will join the existing East tower that opened in 2019, creating one of the largest retail and office destinations in the city. By 2034, five plazas with a total of about 20,000 square meters will be complete, serving daily life and doubling as evacuation zones in emergencies. The investment runs into the tens of billions of dollars and showcases how Japan uses private rail and real estate groups to renew busy hubs.

Shibuya sits in a natural bowl. The station lies at the bottom of the valley, hemmed in by slopes on the east and west. That geography makes cross town movement hard and adds to crowding. Planners are answering with an urban core, a vertical circulation system of elevators and escalators that moves people up through tall buildings and out across bridges and decks. An elevated Skyway scheduled for 2030 will link Shibuya Hikarie on the east side with Mark City on the west, flattening the climb for pedestrians and joining the two halves of the district.

What is being built and when

The modern rebuild around the station began after the Tokyu Toyoko Line moved underground in 2002. That shift freed surface space and unlocked new plots at ground level. Shibuya Hikarie, a 43 story complex, opened in 2012 with offices, retail, and a theater. Shibuya Stream opened in 2018 with a hotel and workplaces. Shibuya Scramble Square East tower followed in 2019, crowned by the Shibuya Sky observation deck at 230 meters. Core station renovations continued through 2020 to improve transfers and expand concourses. In 2024, the district unveiled Shibuya Sakura Stage and Shibuya Ax as part of a new wave of mixed use buildings.

Towers and plazas on a fixed calendar

The final linkages arrive in this decade. By 2030, a connected pedestrian network will bind the east, west, north, and south sides of the station. A free east west corridor over 20 meters wide will connect both sides of the complex. Ground level free passages will broaden in front of the JR Hachiko entrance to a maximum width near 22 meters, and in front of the JR South entrance near 23 meters. On the upper levels, a deck of about 3,000 square meters will connect the JR and Ginza Line ticket gate to Shibuya Chuo Street and Sakuragaoka. The second phase of Shibuya Scramble Square is planned for 2031, with Central and West towers that link to the East tower and create very large retail floors of up to 6,000 square meters. A cultural exchange facility is planned on the 10th floor of the Central tower with views toward the crossing and Shinjuku.

Two more major projects round out the skyline. The Shibuya Upper West project is planned to finish in 2029 on the former department store site, centered on a 34 story complex of 155.7 meters that will host a contemporary luxury hotel and a new home for The Museum from Bunkamura. On the northeast side of Miyamasuzaka Shita intersection, the Miyamasuzaka Area Type 1 Urban Redevelopment Project targets completion in 2031. It will deliver a 33 story building of about 180 meters with large halls for meetings and exhibitions and international standard lodging. The east side of the site will include a rebuilt Shibuya Miyamasu Mitake Shrine and a new mid rise commercial building.

Street level spaces are changing as well. The Shibuya River, once a concrete channel tucked behind buildings, is being opened up in sections into a plaza with trees and a pedestrian walkway. The station rebuild brings new entrances, wider stairs, and clearer routes, capped by the observation deck that pulls visitors up to a sweeping view of the city and Mt. Fuji on clear days. In parallel, historic pockets such as Nonbei Yokocho aim to keep the district’s local character in step with the new skyline.

How a rail hub drives urban change

Shibuya’s station area is one of the busiest transport nodes in Japan, with around 2.1 million daily passengers and a web of lines that include JR East, Tokyu, Keio, and Tokyo Metro services. That scale rewards a planning approach that centers on transit. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) creates dense, walkable neighborhoods around stations by mixing offices, homes, shops, and public spaces within a few minutes of the platforms. The aim is to reduce car trips, grow transit ridership, and keep daily needs close at hand.

Why TOD matters in Tokyo

Tokyo’s rail network is frequent and reliable, and central neighborhoods have little space for private parking. A station district that works well for walkers is good for business and for residents. The Shibuya program responds to long standing pain points, including awkward transfers, crowded choke points, and a lack of public space. Designers have widened concourses and ticket gate areas, added new vertical links, and carved a clear east west corridor over 20 meters wide through the complex. On upper levels, a new pedestrian deck will link ticketing areas to nearby streets and neighborhoods, shortening trips and creating natural flows between buildings that once felt separate.

Financing the rebuild without overburdening taxpayers

Large station projects are expensive to build and maintain. Tokyo has refined a model that uses land value created by new development to help pay for public works. This is known as Land Value Capture (LVC). Tax and fee tools include property tax growth, betterment levies, and tax increment financing. Development tools include land sales and leases, the sale of air rights above tracks and roads, land readjustment that pools and reapportions plots, and special urban redevelopment financing. In Shibuya, the rail companies and developers invest in real estate that benefits from station upgrades, and part of that value helps fund the improvements.

Land value capture in practice

Delivery depends on clear roles. The rail sector focuses on tracks and station upgrades. The public sector leads streets and utilities. Private and railway partners take on towers and retail. Projects seek consent from landowners through a system that can proceed with approval from two thirds of stakeholders, which is paired with long consultation and design reviews. Community walks, information campaigns, and even construction tours have been used to maintain support during years of building while trains continue to run. The result is a steady pipeline of projects with limited direct impact on public budgets and a strong link between the station and the buildings that surround it.

Disaster readiness and public space

Safety is a central theme. Many buildings going up in Shibuya replace structures from the 1980s and earlier that no longer meet current standards for earthquakes and fire. Lessons from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake shaped the way towers are engineered and how public spaces function. The new plazas around the station will serve as everyday gathering places, and they are designed to operate as temporary evacuation sites during emergencies. Wide free passages and deck networks reduce bottlenecks and give first responders options if an incident occurs.

Better public space is also a tool for crowd management in a district that attracts visitors day and night. Shibuya has become the most visited neighborhood in Tokyo for foreign tourists, and local officials have worked to direct people beyond the crossing and Hachiko statue to relieve pressure on narrow streets. The urban core and Skyway will help disperse foot traffic across the valley. New wayfinding points visitors toward calmer destinations such as Nabeshima Shoto Park to the west of the station. The park includes a public restroom designed by architect Kengo Kuma as part of The Tokyo Toilet project, a small example of how the district uses design to improve everyday experience. Nighttime policies seek to spread visitors across music bars and small venues throughout Shibuya rather than concentrating crowds in a few blocks.

Shibuya as a launchpad for startups and culture

The redevelopment is about more than new buildings. Tokyu Land and partners describe a Greater Shibuya area within a 2.5 kilometer radius that links neighborhoods like Daikanyama, Harajuku, Aoyama, and Yoyogi. The latest concept, often described as Greater Shibuya 2.0, aims to integrate work, living, and play while adding digital services and sustainability programs. A digital platform known as MABLs connects employees across buildings, and new shared spaces host meetups, exhibitions, and learning sessions. Startup support is a core plank, with collaborative facilities and programs such as SAKURA DEEPTECH SHIBUYA aimed at attracting researchers and founders working on advanced fields.

Area management plays a day to day role. Developers and the ward government coordinate with local groups on street cleanups, road safety, and seasonal events. The Shibuya New Year countdown event has been designed to be safe and family friendly, a contrast with the uncontrolled gatherings that once clogged the area. The goal is to keep the energy that made Shibuya famous while providing a cleaner, easier, and more inclusive experience for residents, workers, and visitors.

Office demand, retail shifts and tourism

Shibuya’s renaissance coincides with a period of change in how people work. Remote and flexible schedules rose during the pandemic, and companies continue to rethink the size and layout of offices. Developers in Shibuya are hedging against uncertainty by mixing uses in each project. New towers include hotels, serviced apartments, cultural facilities, and event halls alongside offices and shops. The upcoming Central tower will host a cultural exchange space on its 10th floor, and the combined Scramble Square footprint will offer large retail areas of around 6,000 square meters per floor to support flagship stores and immersive cultural programming.

Tourism has returned strongly, and Shibuya is on many itineraries. Surveys show a majority of foreign visitors in Tokyo visit Shibuya during their stay. That success brings crowding and noise to manage, especially on weekends and holiday nights. Ward officials are using both place design and scheduling to move people across time and space. The walkway network, clearer signage, and new plazas will spread visitors during the day. Partnerships with bar and nightclub associations encourage discovery of music bars and small venues across the district, easing pressure on hotspots like Dogenzaka and the blocks around Shibuya 109.

What other cities are watching

East Asia offers fertile ground for Transit Oriented Development. High density, frequent rail service, and policies that discourage private car ownership support walkable centers and steady foot traffic. Cities like Hong Kong and Singapore pair strong transit with rules that make car ownership expensive, which pushes demand toward trains. Shibuya shows how a rail district can become a platform for new investment when transport, real estate, and public space sit in one plan. Success depends on getting the local details right, from topography and culture to the legal tools that allow projects to advance.

Shibuya’s approach is drawing interest from abroad. Honolulu recently set a sister city relationship with Shibuya in part to learn from its transit hub and private sector led development. Visiting officials observed how private rail and land companies work with city planners to deliver cohesive projects, an approach that is also shared in other Japanese hubs.

The comparison within Asia is instructive. Tokyo adopted a national Special Act on Urban Regeneration in 2002 that loosened floor area limits in targeted zones and enabled large mixed use complexes tied to transit. That continuity helped build a long pipeline of projects. In contrast, places where redevelopment has been stalled by shifting policies and disputes over heritage often see years of delay. Clear standards, stable rules, and intensive public dialogue make it easier to balance old and new in very central districts.

Key Points

• By 2030, Shibuya will complete a multi level pedestrian network that links the station in all directions.
• Central and West towers of Shibuya Scramble Square are scheduled to open in 2031, expanding large retail floors connected to the 2019 East tower.
• Five new plaza spaces totaling about 20,000 square meters are planned by 2034, designed for daily use and emergency evacuation.
• Shibuya Station upgrades include widened concourses, new ticket gates, and a free east west corridor more than 20 meters wide.
• The plan includes a 3,000 square meter pedestrian deck connecting station ticketing areas to Shibuya Chuo Street and Sakuragaoka.
• Transit Oriented Development anchors the program, with around 2.1 million daily passengers supporting dense, walkable streets.
• Funding relies on land value capture and private investment by rail and real estate companies, with limited budget impact on the public sector.
• Disaster readiness shaped designs after the 2011 earthquake, and new plazas can operate as temporary evacuation sites.
• Shibuya Ward is tackling crowding by dispersing visitors beyond the crossing and improving vertical and horizontal movement across the valley.
• The Greater Shibuya strategy promotes startups and culture through digital platforms, shared spaces, and area management.