This 16-story office building looks like any other in Osaka’s dense downtown save for one thing: There’s a highway passing through it. In 1983, the government made plans to expand the Osaka section of the Hanshin Expressway, but discovered a problem: They needed a parcel of land for an exit ramp, and the owners were not interested in selling. The family had run a charcoal and lumber company there since the 19th century; while those buildings were deteriorating, they wanted to build a new, modern office tower. The two parties settled in for negotiations—five years of them. They finally came to an agreement: The government would grant the owners the permits necessary to build their tower—but only if it could run its highway through part of it. Today, the Hanshin Expressway is listed as the “tenant” of the building’s 5th, 6th, and 7th floors, and office workers toil in the rest of the heavily soundproofed building.
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- The World's Most Stubborn Real Estate Holdouts, Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 02:25