Northstar

ENTERTAIN | ON LOCATION | Osaka 58 Jan-Feb 2016 MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS • MCMAG-ASIA.COM UMEKITA • PHASE 2 Innovation and nature will be the themes of the next stage, which will o cially kick o in 2016. Construction work will begin on an empty 16.2ha site next to Phase 1, steps from Osaka Station. Four hectares of the site will be given over to green space, while targeted industries will include healthcare, environmental, internet- related companies, strategic economic development and robotics. A new high-speed train line will connect the development directly to Kansai International Airport. For more information, contact umeda- connect@urban-ii.or.jp Matsuio, a manager at Osaka International Convention Centre (OICC). Before Umekita's Phase 1 development, OICC, situated about a 15-minute car ride from Osaka Station, was the de facto choice for large-scale events in the city. The new Umekita development has now added extra capacity and lustre to the city, with a range of venues to accommodate any type of event. These include the Knowledge Capital Congrès Convention Centre (seating capacity 1,750), Herbis Hall (1,000), Knowledge Capital Theatre (381), InterContinental Hotel (272), Hotel New Hankyu Osaka (922), and The Ritz-Carlton hotel (292). Grand Front Osaka has a Knowledge Plaza in the central atrium that can host 100, a beautifully open space, while Billboard Live in the Herbis Complex (the complex has extensive medical facilities, tying in with the city's reputation for medical innovation), can seat 350 and stage live shows or 3-D lms. Left from top: Buzzing events at Umekita Plaza; InterContinental Osaka's NOKA private room; An elegant ambience at The Ritz-Carlton Osaka; Herbis Complex o‰ ers a variety of events space Osaka Station has eight plazas, all featuring clocks. Each can accommodate hundreds of people and ranges from the eight-storey- high Atrium Plaza and the Toki- no-hiroba Plaza that has staged lm festival red carpets, to the breezy, airy Yawaragi-no-niwa Plaza, verdant with maple, cherry blossom, and azaleas during warmer months. The Umeda 1-1 building, part of Umekita's Phase 2, will fully open in 2022 and will feature a 4,000sqm convention cente. Masasaki Yoshikawa, director general of the business incubator Osaka Innovation Hub, shares that the city has a palpable desire to evolve. "Osaka has the biggest SMEs sector in Japan. There is a lot of energy here, lots of innovation... The government wants to help local businesses; we, for instance, are 100 percent funded by the city." There is a tangible sense of excitement here, a positive, can-do spirit among city entrepreneurs.

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