Tachikawa's GREEN SPRINGS: A Nature-Rich Place to Be

An Engawa Joining People, the City, and Nature

GREEN SPRINGS, located north of JR Tachikawa Station, draws people in and fills an important community role through a refreshing infusion of nature into everyday life. Tachikawa City sits between Tokyo's urban center and western Tokyo's bucolic countryside, a 30-minute ride on the rapid-service train from Shinjuku Station and an hour's journey to Okutama Station. Boasting a multipurpose hall, hotel, cafés, restaurants, offices, and more, the sizable complex operates on the concept of forming a "well-being town" where the city, nature, and people coexist in harmony.

The complex is also nestled between the Tachikawa Station area, where redevelopment work has created a bustling hub of activity, and Showa Kinen Park, one of Tokyo's largest parks. Kudo Toshiya from Tachihi Strategy Labo, the company that developed and now operates GREEN SPRINGS, likens the location to the engawa of a traditional Japanese house—a strip of floored edging that creates a transitional space between the inside and the outside worlds.

"An engawa is the space in a house where family members and visitors just naturally come together; it's not really fully inside the house or outside it," Kudo says. "We wanted our complex to be an engawa for Tachikawa, and we weaved that idea into the overall design."

What gives GREEN SPRINGS that engawa feel? Besides the location, it is the complex's central garden: a sprawling, 1-hectare space right in the middle. The shops and offices surrounding the garden are glass-walled to create a sense of openness, with wooden eaves extending outward to create spaces that seamlessly link the inside and outside. That "outside" element is not just an exterior accompaniment, either. Benches and roofed rest spots dot the central garden, which abuts a grassy lawn to the north. All together, the GREEN SPRINGS design literally builds around comfort and relaxation.

"When you look at the central area, you see so much variety: people walking their dogs in the morning, families with little kids playing during the day, high school students chatting and laughing on their way home in the late afternoon," Kudo says. "I think one of the things that sets the complex apart is all the time people spend there—and all the smiles on their faces."

Enhancing the Value of Tachikawa and the Tama Area

GREEN SPRINGS is also a place where nature thrives. Boasting over 350 species native to the Tama area, the complex has a dynamic visual personality that changes from season to season. The biotope in the middle of the garden is home to a variety of plant and animal life from the Tamagawa River system, too, making it a unique recreation of the local natural environment.

"The people who did the planting for us said they'd never done so many trees before," Kudo remembers. "When you look around Japan, you won't find many complexes that actually plant real greenery instead of using artificial alternatives. I think we really broke new ground in the industry."

Normally, urban-type property development involves optimizing floor-space ratios to boost investment efficiency for business purposes—which is another standard that GREEN SPRINGS breaks from. The central garden, which not only produces no rent revenue but also creates maintenance and management costs, is the kind of investment that Kudo says would be "out of the question" in conventional industry thinking.

So why did Kudo and his team decide to go ahead with developing around a central garden? The reason is that they sought to enhance the value of Tachikawa City and the Tama area as a whole.

"We wanted to give local residents area source of civic pride," Kudo explains. "If the complex can be a hub that unites the rest of the community, we know that it'll benefit the Tama area in the long run and elevate Tachikawa's profile as a city. That's something we, as landowners, have the ability—and responsibility, I think—to do."

Putting Okutama on the Map for Tourists

In the gradually recovering inbound market, Tachikawa City is the perfect fit for drawing visitors to the Okutama area. With GREEN SPRINGS also home to the SORANO HOTEL, there are even more reasons the complex is grabbing the spotlight.

Tourists in the area have so much to do. Kudo explains, "You can spend the day in the natural surroundings of Okutama, taking in the sights and sounds of the river with a boat trip or some fishing. You can take a tour of a sake brewery, too. Then, when you get back to Tachikawa, you have your choice of great dinner and accommodation options. The SORANO HOTEL is an 'urban resort' with an infinity pool on the top floor. There's even more on-site: one big element is TACHIKAWA STAGE GARDEN, a multipurpose hall that has its own sky deck. It all comes together to offer something for everyone, inbound tourists included. It's going to be a can't-miss destination."

With a focus on a harmonious future and an engawa concept that creates a compelling fusion of modern functionality and natural greenery, GREEN SPRINGS is quickly becoming one of Tokyo's places to be.

Operating on a concept that envisions green urban development for the next 100 years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is pushing initiatives to protect, cultivate, and utilize Tokyo's greenery. Creating greenery in coordination with community development and forming spaces for conserving biodiversity are some of the many efforts through which the initiative aims to transform Tokyo into a sustainable city that exists in harmony with nature.
https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/policies/environment/0804_01.html