Shimamura buys into Kyoto's Shijo-Kawaramachi for a 2029 flagship built for inbound visitors
Japan's biggest apparel chain by store count is putting a seven-storey flagship on one of Kyoto's busiest tourist shopping streets — a costly departure from its usual roadside format, built explicitly to make Shimamura a recognisable name to visitors before it opens stores of its own overseas.
Shimamura said it has acquired land in Kyoto's Shijo-Kawaramachi shopping district, in the city's Shimogyo ward, for a seven-storey commercial building that will serve as a group flagship, with the main store set to open in 2029, according to a release dated September 29.
Ahead of that opening, the company said it plans to run a temporary, limited-run store on the site within the current fiscal year, though it gave no specific date. The flagship building will have no on-site parking, Shimamura said.
Shimamura said the project is meant to raise brand recognition among foreign visitors as the group prepares for its own expansion overseas, and to serve both domestic and international shoppers.
Shimamura built its scale on suburban roadside stores selling low-priced clothing to local, repeat shoppers — not on the kind of prime, high-rent tourist corner that Kyoto's Shijo-Kawaramachi represents, a few minutes from Nishiki Market and the Kawaramachi shopping arcades. Putting a purpose-built flagship there, years before it says a word about specific overseas markets, reads as building the sign before building the shops behind it: a visible, photographable Japan address that gives an unfamiliar brand something to point to once it does open abroad.