Sapporo city center is currently under a huge construction boom. Since I came here 5 years ago I can’t count the number of new buildings in the Sapporo station/Odori/Susukino area.
There are at least a dozen of new buildings being built at the moment, among them a 115 meters tower near Odori park. I am passing in front every morning, and they announced that, after 15 floors already being built, that they will… restart from scratch. Apparently, they found structural issues, hidden by a falsified report. It was planned for 2024, will finally be finished in 2026.
It is the first time I heard about a building near completion being completely destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. Are there any known cases like that for high rise buildings in Japan?
Link: https://xtech.nikkei.com/atcl/nxt/column/18/00154/01700/
4 comments
Where I’m from they would just cover it up and finish the project as is, but they would also stretch it out to 2028 anyway (or maybe even 2038) to milk the cash flow.
I’m surprised anything can be falsified these days. You need to have an independent structural analysis of the plans, beyond the firm officially certifying the structural analysis.
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I know of a 12-ish story condo building in Otsu (Shiga Prefecture) that was discovered to be faulty soon after people moved in. Most moved out, but last I heard there were a few holdouts before demolishing. This was 10+ years ago…. I wonder what ever happened….
This sounds familiar. I’m sure that I saw something like this in the news here a few years back…
> https://japanpropertycentral.com/2021/07/30-story-apartment-tower-in-fukuoka-to-be-demolished/
> https://www.ft.com/content/a98cdf48-5b65-11da-b221-0000779e2340
This seems to be in keeping with other similar accidental falsifications of data in reports.
With earthquakes being what they are in Japan, “structural issues” are no joke. Once the info leaks, the building is worthless as no one wants to live in it.
I remember a hotel chain (toyoko inn iirc) fell into a similar scandal a few years back by not renovating buildings to meet modern codes.