Bet

The area extending two kilometers along Koshu Kaido / National Route 20 from the North Exit of Takao Station (the JR-only side) to Keio Takaosanguchi Station (the base of Mt. Takao) has big potential. For one thing, a meaningful percentage of the three-frigging-million annual visitors to Mt. Takao disembark at Takao Station and walk the stretch to access the mountain. For another, there are many empty shops, and homes on the stretch regularly come up for sale. And importantly, there are many residents living on the north side of Takao Station. They are economically and otherwise ready to support shops on their side of the station, if only such shops would meet their needs.

You have been conditioned to think that empty, shuttered shops along formerly thriving shotengai shopping streets bespeak a community’s declining economy. This is not really true, especially in the case of Takao. It is much more attributable to malls like Aeon having vacuumed up the demand that used to sustain the mom-and-pop stores of shotengai. Sure, some regions and communities of Japan have actually declined in population and economy, but go to even one of those, as I do on many business trips: There is always a nearby Aeon Mall or at least supermarket that has captured the lion’s share of local consumer demand, in the most goddamned uniform and boring way possible. (What’s that? You saw me hypocritically eating at an Ikinari Steak in an Aeon Mall in Kofu just a month ago? Well, it was very convenient. So there.)

In the case of the empty former shops along this stretch of Koshu Kaido, the reason they have closed is that the people who ran the shops retired and no one carried on the business. How do I know this? When I was looking to locate my company near the station circa 2014, I went to each of the shops and talked to the owners about renting from them. The answer was virtually always that they didn’t want to rent out the shops, because their houses were still connected directly to them structurally without a good way to separate shop and home, which is fine unless you rent to non-family. But they were also not going to be operating a shop again anytime soon. So good commercial locations along this street (and many others of Japan) lie fallow in droves. Feel free to search around the internet for evidence and cases of this, and for success stories of communities where shops have basically been redistributed, to refresh the local economy and foot traffic and whatnot. I won’t go into all that here; however, the Kofu Station environs are seeing some of this, in my experience.

There were butcher shops, fruit and vegetable shops, mom-and-pop drug stores, rice shops, and others along my stretch of Koshu Kaido, even when I moved here in 2004. They have mostly disappeared over time, first because the kids of shopkeepers tend not to aspire to carry on their family’s businesses, and of course because those kinds of shops are no longer as profitable without changing up their business models (such as to premium-product/service, etc.), and of course with malls and supermarkets absorbing the bulk of demand. But it isn’t the case that the area has no economic power, or that no shop of any kind could thrive here.

All this is the background of my idea to bet on creating a virtuous cycle of attractive new shops appearing, followed by more foot traffic, followed by more attractive new shops appearing.

In 2021, I purchased the above two-story building. Its facade is connected to the buildings on its right and left, but the structures are separate architecturally and in ownership. At the time, I was in touch with the now-former tenant of the first floor, who wanted to open an art gallery and workshop to create her own art. The building previously had an Indian restaurant on the first floor and an apartment on the second. Many of you already know this. I paid for the interior renovation to create the gallery space.

I was very happy when the gallery opened and some exhibitions of art were held there. It felt to me like a lovely contribution to the community. A lot of kids walk by on the way to and from school. They could peek in and see art. Tourists might walk by and think “Takao has art.” It was neat.

Now the tenant has changed her business model to only creating art and not lending a gallery to other artists, so moving out made sense. I wish her the best. I have thought about lending out the gallery myself. This prospect seems so nice, and likely to be a royal pain in the ass.

Here is a video of the inside of the space, now that it has been cleaned:

I think it’s nice.

Some ideas for what to put in there next:

-A coffee roasting operation, with possible small space for coffee pouring and enjoyment. The folks who run the TMH. cafe might need such a space; we’ll see if our needs align. A not-insignificant portion of my decision to go this route would be influenced by the resulting smell of roasting beans, and the personal availability of coffee beans and perhaps even coffee.

-Find a way to lend it out as a rental gallery without ever having to do anything

-Run my own shop of some kind (highly unlikely and even more unadvisable)

-Find someone who wants to use it as a suitably light-level restaurant or other shop

-Etc.

But the thing that will constitute the bet of the title of this blog post will not be the above purchase of the building, which is done, or its use going forward. That investment will more or less pay off, if on a longer span of years than planned, by dint of my having placed my company there and eliminated the need to pay anyone else rent.

My idea for a bet is to initially provide spaces at inexpensive rent prices to businesses whose presence will increase the attractiveness of this street, leading to the above virtuous cycle. This would start with the first-floor space, but ideally come to include more locations nearby—there are prospects to acquire these that I hope to be able to elaborate on in the future.

I want to accelerate the time at which the area reaches critical mass in terms of attractive establishments, and thereby draws the foot traffic the area deserves. Only a fool who is willing to invest by acquiring such locations and then offering them at strategically lower rents can achieve this acceleration. I may be that fool.

It goes without saying that discussion of what to do with anything beyond the one tiny location I currently have is just brainstorming and plotting, but I think I will keep pursuing the idea through action. Also, there are of course existing businesses who have been here since long ago. They are very important. I only want to add to their ranks.

To summarize the concept as succinctly as possible: Invest up-front by acquiring properties and providing discounted rent to carefully selected businesses, to raise the value of the whole area faster. My thinking is so underdeveloped and unsupported at this point that I am a fool to even share it with you. No. That’s what blogs are for.