Gate Tower Building

The Gate Tower Building (ゲートタワービル, gēto tawā biru) is a 16-floor office building in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Japan. It is notable for the highway offramp of the Ikeda Route that passes through the building.

Overview

The building has a double core construction, with a circular cross-section. The Umeda exit of the Ikeda Route of the Hanshin Expressway system (when exiting the highway from the direction of Ikeda) passes between the fifth through seventh floors of the building. The highway is effectively the tenant of those floors. The elevator passes through the floors without stopping, with floor 4 being followed by floor 8. The floors through which the highway passes consist of elevators, stairways and machinery. The highway does not make contact with the building. It passes through as a bridge, held up by supports next to the building. The highway is surrounded by a structure to protect the building from noise and vibration. The roof has a helipad.

History

A wood and charcoal business held the property rights for the plot of land since the early Meiji period, but the gradual move to other sources of fuel resulted in the deterioration of those company buildings. In 1983, redevelopment of the area was approved, but building permits were refused because the highway was already being planned. The property rights' holders refused to give up, and negotiated with the Hanshin Expressway corporation for approximately five years to reach the current solution.