Fukushima-ku ( 福島区 ) is one of 24 wards of Osaka city in Japan. The ward is primarily a residential quarter, but has some office buildings and a commercial district, as well as factories and wholesale businesses. In recent years, many high rise apartment buildings and office buildings have been built in this ward, because it is close to the Umeda and Dōjima business centers.
8-566: 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. 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
16-407: 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 . 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
24-672: The Yodo River on the north, and the Dōjima River on the south. This district (north part of Dōjima) was a suburban farm village during the Edo period , and large factories, especially textile factories, were built during the Meiji period . Panasonic, then Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. , was established in 1918 in Fukushima. Even today, there are many printing companies and automobile parts wholesalers in
32-511: 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. Although normally highway corporations purchase the land they build a highway on or over, it is not guaranteed to succeed and therefore issues like this can arise. For that reason,
40-474: The construction of the Gate Tower Building, becoming Japan's first building to have a highway pass through it. Normally, highways are still built underground in these cases, and passing through a building is an extremely rare occurrence. Fukushima-ku, Osaka As of 1 August 2008 , the ward has a population of 63,237, and an area of 4.67 km (1.80 sq mi). It is bordered by
48-405: 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
56-407: The highway laws, city planning laws, city redevelopment laws and building codes were partly revised in 1989 to allow the unified development of highways and buildings in the same space. This system was originally designed to facilitate the construction of the second ring road in the vicinity of Toranomon, Minato , Tokyo, but in the end was not applied there. Instead, the system was put into effect in
64-412: The ward. Prior to World War II , Osaka University Hospital and Osaka City Central Market were located here. After World War II, many office buildings were built around JR Fukushima station, because it is close to Umeda (the business center of western Japan). Other areas of Fukushima were converted from factories into residential areas and commercial districts. In 2008, Hotarumachi was redeveloped at
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