Nankai Railway turns the old Takashimaya Sakai site into an 87,000 sqm "direct SC"

Nankai Corporation, the railway operator, said in a release dated 21 July that it is rebuilding its Sakai-Higashi station building in Osaka — previously home to Takashimaya's Sakai department store — into an 87,048-square-metre commercial complex it is calling HiViE Sakai-Higashi.

The new building, replacing what had been known as the Nankai Sakai-Higashi Building, will rise nine storeys with two basement levels, according to the release. A Life Corporation supermarket of roughly 1,800 square metres will open on the first floor in early December, operating from 10am to 9pm ahead of the complex's full grand opening in spring 2027. Nankai said the building will also carry fashion, food-service, clinic and other service tenants, though it has not yet named them, saying details would follow once decided.

The site had housed Takashimaya's Sakai department store, according to Nankai — one of the regional locations department-store chains have exited as their networks have thinned outside Japan's largest cities. Rebuilding it as a "direct SC" that Nankai itself operates, rather than leasing the whole building to one department-store tenant, lets the railway capture retail rent from guaranteed commuter footfall without betting the site on a single operator's ability to fill a full department store again. Leading with a supermarket months before the main opening is a familiar move in rail-anchored redevelopments: it gives commuters a reason to stop before the upper floors, still without named tenants, have proven themselves.