Wangan-dori Avenue
Funabashi City (Chiba prefecture), Japan
Work began on Japan's first American-style shopping mall in November of 1979. The facility was conceived and built by Tokyo's Mitsui Real Estate Development Company, which, up to this time, had been involved in the construction of office buildings and residential facilities.
LALAPORT FUNABASHI CENTER was built on a 42-acre plot, situated 15 miles east of central Tokyo, in Funabashi City, a political subdivision of the Chiba prefecture. The mall site, comprised of a section of reclaimed land along the northern rim of Tokyo Bay, contained the Funabashi Health Center amusement park between November 1955 and May 1977.
Through their new Lalaport concept, the Mitsui Fudosan company strived to create "a life center for families to enjoy time together". Not merely a shopping mall, LALAPORT FUNABASHI CENTER featured retail stores, a live performance venue, cultural center, heated swimming pool, several tennis courts and a disco.
Moreover, the fully-enclosed complex was "environmentally-friendly". Indoor greenery and natural lighting brought the great outdoors indoors. Various "green" concepts were incorporated, such as the reuse of drainage water for toilets, recollection of exhaust heat and installation of energy-efficient electrical transformers and lighting fixtures.
LALAPORT FUNABASHI CENTER was officially dedicated on April 2, 1981. The 2-level facility was anchored by a 4-level (115,400 square foot), Osaka-based Sogo department store and 2-level (50,200 square foot), Kobe-based Daiei ["diy-ay"], which sold groceries, electronics, home furnishings and apparel. The shopping hub, at the time the largest in Asia, encompassed approximately 786,300 leasable square feet and housed 200 stores and services. A rooftop deck and several surface lots could accommodate up to 4,000 autos.
The LALAPORT mall was well served by the area's transportation grid. The Higashi-Kanto Expressway ran along the south perimeter of the property and the Keisei ["kay-say"] Electric Railway's Center-Keibajo-mae (later Funabashi-Keibajo-mae) Station was 3/10s of a mile northeast. Transportation options to and from the mall were expanded further with the inauguration of an extension of the East Japan Railway's Keiyo Line. The Minami-Funabashi Station, located 2/10s of a mile southeast of the retail hub, opened for revenue service on March 3, 1986.
The first expansion of the mall was completed in March 1988. Adding 570,000 leasable square feet and 100 stores, Lalaport 2 encompassed 3 retail levels. There were an 8-bay Dining Terrace, twin cinema, 14-floor Lalaport Mutsui Building office tower and three multi-level parking garages. With the completion of Lalaport 2, the original section of the mall was renamed Lalaport 1. The official name of the entire complex was also changed to LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY.
A second expansion was dedicated on April 20, 2000. Lalaport 3 extended the mall by 334,000 square feet, increasing its gross leasable area to approximately 1,690,300. Lalaport 3 consisted of 7 levels; floors 1, 2 and 3 housed retail with floors 4-7 being devoted to parking. The addition brought seventy new stores. LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY now housed 370.
The shuttering of Sogo, in December of the year 2000, provided space for another mall modification. The vacant store was divided into tenant spaces, with those on the first floor comprising a Food-Life Zone. Second and third floor space was configured as a Hobby Zone, with a Restaurant Zone being installed on the fourth floor. The new Lalaport West section was dedicated on September 21, 2001. Stores and services included Marui's, Tokyo Style, Scott Club, Giordano and Tully's Coffee.
Daiei was downsized in 1998, with a new Harbor Dining Food Court taking a portion of first floor space. Daiei closed for good in November 2002. Like the old Sogo store, its area was subdivided into tenant spaces. The building, renamed Lalaport East, re-opened in February 2005.
At this time, other sections of the mall were renamed. The former Lalaport 1 became Lalaport North and aforementioned Lalaport East. Lalaport 2 and Lalaport 3 would be known as Lalaport South. The Lalaport East designation was eventually abandoned.
Major retail facilities in the vicinity of LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY included MITSUI OUTLET PARK MAKUHARI (2000) {3.7 miles southeast}, INKSPIARI (2000) {6.5 miles southwest}, VIVIT MINAMI-FUNABASHI (2004) {adjacent to LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY} and -eventually- TOKYO SOLAMACHI (SKYTREE) (2012) {10 miles northwest}.
Over the years, several motion picture venues have operated in -or around- the LALAPORT mall. The first, Movix Lalaport, was a single-screen "park-in" (or drive-in) venue. A second theater, the Funabashi Lalaport Central 1 & 2, was an in-mall twinplex installed -in 1988- as part of the Lalaport 2 expansion.
On March 13, 1993, the mall-adjacent drive-in re-opened as the Movix Lalaport 1 & 2. Inside the mall, the twinplex was expanded, ending up as the Funabashi Lalaport 10. This venue was relocated to the third and fourth floors of the West Building. The Toho Cinemas Lalaport Funabashi 10-plex showed its first features on November 23, 2013.
At the same time, new stores and retail districts were opening. These included Toys "R" Us-Babies "R" Us, a Lopia gourmet supermarket and Lala Popteen Land (a mini-mall of teenage fashion stores and restaurants). In 2014, the area vacated by the relocation of the South Building cinema was reconfigured as Trend Square, a fashion-forward collection of ladies' apparel and accessory shops. An official dedication was held on June 25.
The LALAPORT mall's 17th major renovation was done between November 2018 and March 2019. Thirty-nine stores were renovated, with twelve new stores added to the directory. Parking facilities were refurbished. A moving sidewalk was also installed, which linked the Minami-Funabashi Station and LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY. This "horizontal escalator" was completed in the summer of 2019.
In February 2022, construction started on the Lala Arena Tokyo-Bay project. This sports and entertainment facility was built on the old drive-in theater site southwest of LALAPORT TOKYO-BAY. The 10,000-seat amphitheater serves as home base for the Chiba Jets Funabashi basketball team. The facility was completed in the spring of 2024.
Sources:
The Wall Street Journal
https://mitsui-shopping-park.com / Mitsui Fudosan Group
http://tokyobay.lalaport.net (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
http://www.lalaport.co.jp (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
http://www.mitsuifudosan.co.jp (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
https://www.mitsuifudosan.co.jp
http://hlo.tohotheater.jp
http://shochiku.co.jp / Shochiku Company
http://homepage1.nifty.com/movix/lalaport.htm / Movix
http://www.fira.jp
https://gigazine.net
http://www.olc.co.jp / OLC Group
http://www.nreionline.com
http://www.company-histories.com / Daiei
https://tokyo.mport.info
https://www.nreionline.com
https://studylib.net
https://apnews.com
"Keiyo Line" article on Wikipedia
"Keisei Electric Railway" article on Wikipedia
"Sogo" and "Daiei" articles on Wikipedia
