Yodobashi Camera takes over the former Meitetsu department-store building in Nagoya
Nagoya Railroad says Yodobashi Camera will fill the basement-to-fourth floors of the former Meitetsu department-store building by Nagoya Station this summer — turning a flagship that closed in February after 71 years into a big-box electronics hall, and giving Yodobashi its first address in the Meieki district.
Nagoya Railroad said on 10 July that Yodobashi Camera will open a store in the Meitetsu Building — the former Meitetsu Department Store main building at 1-2-1 Meieki, Nakamura-ku, Nagoya — taking basement level one through the fourth floor and opening this summer. It will be the electronics retailer's first store in the Meieki district around Nagoya Station.
Alongside the latest consumer electronics, the store will carry watches, toys, sporting and outdoor goods and a pharmacy, plus a cluster of Western confectionery shops, Nagoya Railroad said; the operator added that it aimed to "respond to diverse shopping needs." The exact opening date and fuller store details are still to come.
The building housed Meitetsu's flagship department store until 28 February, when the store closed after 71 years ahead of a planned redevelopment of the Nagoya Station frontage. Meitetsu has said it will keep the building's lower floors and basement in commercial use for the interim, and the Yodobashi hall is the anchor for that stopgap while the larger station-area project advances.
The switch drops a big-box electronics format into a shell built for a full-line department store, on one of Japan's busiest station frontages — the kind of conversion that has recurred across the country's regional flagships as fading department-store floors are re-let to category retailers. For Yodobashi, known for its vast Akihabara and Umeda stores, the Meitetsu Building is its first address in the Meieki district by Nagoya Station.