Takashimaya names Aeon and a hot-spring spa as first tenants for its new Hanoi mall
Toshin Development, Takashimaya's property arm, is carrying the same playbook it used at Takashimaya's Ho Chi Minh City store a decade ago into the department store's first foray into Hanoi -- a sign of how far Japan's retailers are willing to carry their formats as the home market shrinks.
Takashimaya Co., Ltd. and its consolidated property subsidiary Toshin Development Co., Ltd. said on October 15 that a Mikazuki Onsen & Spa wellness facility and an Aeon-branded supermarket will be the first named tenants of "Hanoi Takashimaya S.C.," the retail podium of "Westlake Square Hanoi," the mixed-use complex the two companies are developing in Hanoi's Starlake district.
Westlake Square Hanoi's first phase will combine basement-to-sixth-floor retail and leisure with office floors above, the companies said, with a 35-storey office tower to follow in a later phase. The retail podium itself, basement to fourth floor, will be Takashimaya's first department store in Hanoi -- its second in Vietnam after the store it opened in Ho Chi Minh City in 2016. Toshin Development, which already operates that store, said it will carry its operating know-how over to the new one, including a food hall, a beauty floor and gift sections suited to local gift-giving customs.
The Aeon-branded supermarket will take the basement alongside Takashimaya's own food hall, while Mikazuki Onsen & Spa -- a Japanese-style hot-spring and bathing facility with themed baths, a sauna and a jacuzzi -- will occupy the sixth floor. Construction reached its topping-out stage on September 18, with the retail floors due to open in autumn 2027.
Pairing a Japanese department store with a Japanese-affiliated supermarket and a Japanese-style bathhouse under one roof is itself a statement about how Toshin Development is building this format -- less a Vietnamese shopping centre with a Takashimaya anchor than a transplant of a Japanese retail and leisure mix, on a bet that Hanoi's shoppers will respond to it the way Ho Chi Minh City's already have.