Okegawa Mine

Okegawa Mine (おけがわマイン), formally Patria Okegawa Store (パトリア桶川店), is a four-storey shopping centre in Wakamiya 1-chome, Okegawa City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. It opened in October 1988 as part of the redevelopment of the west exit of Okegawa Station on the JR Takasaki Line, and it is directly connected to the station by a pedestrian deck. The centre is operated by Shin-Toshi Life Holdings Co., Ltd. (株式会社新都市ライフホールディングス), a company descended from the former Housing and Urban Development Corporation, which also developed the adjacent Park Town Wakamiya housing estate. The building is organised by floor around the themes of food, lifestyle, culture and health. The first floor concentrates on food, from fresh groceries to dining; the second floor covers fashion and lifestyle goods; the third floor is a combined library and bookstore space branded OKEGAWA honプラス+ (Okegawa Hon Plus); and the fourth floor houses a clinic mall and daily-life support services. The centre provides parking for 750 cars and 810 bicycles, free Wi-Fi and a parcel-delivery locker. For most of its history the centre was anchored by Tobu Store, which leased almost the entire building from opening until 2015. When Tobu Store indicated it would give up its leases on the third and fourth floors, the owner worked with the bookseller Maruzen and the city of Okegawa to relocate and enlarge the municipal library and to combine it with a large bookstore. The result, opened on 1 October 2015, is the OKEGAWA honプラス+ facility on the third floor, pairing a Maruzen Okegawa store with the Okegawa City Central Library under a shared designated-administrator arrangement involving Maruzen and the Library Research Center. The centre also hosts an Okegawa City Hall west-exit liaison office. Over the years the centre has shed some former attractions, including the Okegawa Mine Theater cinema, which closed in 2012, and a rooftop amusement park that closed in 2010. Today it positions itself as a lifestyle hub for Okegawa, combining retail, dining, culture and health services under one roof.

Okegawa Mine opened in October 1988 as Patria Okegawa Store, a four-storey shopping centre built as part of the west-exit redevelopment of Okegawa Station in Okegawa City, Saitama Prefecture. From the beginning, Tobu Store leased the entire building and operated a directly managed store of about 10,377 m². A municipal library, then called the Okegawa City Station West Exit Library, opened on the fourth floor on 8 October 1988 in a space of about 608 m². The centre was connected to JR Okegawa Station by a pedestrian deck, and to its west lay the station west-exit park, the Saitama Literature Museum and a civic hall, while to its north was the Park Town Wakamiya housing estate developed at the same time by Shin-Toshi Life (formerly the Housing and Urban Development Corporation). For more than two decades the centre operated with Tobu Store as the dominant tenant and included leisure facilities such as the Okegawa Mine Theater, a two-screen cinema that opened in 1988 on the north side of the fourth floor with 132 seats per screen, and a rooftop amusement park with medal games and panda cars. The rooftop play area closed on 31 May 2010, and the cinema closed on 31 January 2012, though it continued to host occasional screenings by volunteer groups until it was demolished in 2015. A first-floor food court called Yam Yam Park, near the Maronie-dori entrance, closed around the 2000s; the space later hosted a drugstore and a takoyaki chain before individual restaurants including Saizeriya, Kineya and Gyoza no Manshu opened there. The centre's major transformation came in the mid-2010s. Tobu Store indicated its intention to terminate its leases on the third and fourth floors. In October 2014, Maruzen and the building owner Shin-Toshi Life proposed moving the library to the third floor, enlarging it to about 2.5 times its former size (about 1,500 m²) and combining it with a newly established bookstore. A basic agreement with Maruzen was signed on 7 March 2015, and on 2 June 2015 the Okegawa City Assembly approved a supplementary budget including about 387 million yen for library improvements. The centre closed temporarily from 16 August to 30 September 2015 for renovation and reopened on 1 October 2015. On that date the third floor opened as OKEGAWA honプラス+, combining the Maruzen Okegawa store (about 1,252 m²) with the Okegawa City Station West Exit Library (about 1,511 m²) and shared library-bookstore space. The library's designated administrator became Maruzen together with its group company, the Library Research Center. In April 2019 the library was renamed the Okegawa City Central Library. Today the centre continues to operate as a four-storey community shopping centre under the ownership of Shin-Toshi Life Holdings, with Tobu Store and Maruzen among its main tenants, alongside the Okegawa City Hall west-exit liaison office. It markets itself around the themes of food, lifestyle, culture and health, and provides parking, free Wi-Fi and parcel lockers.

• Patria Okegawa Store opens as part of the Okegawa Station west-exit redevelopment.

• Okegawa City Station West Exit Library opens on the 4th floor.

• Rooftop amusement park closes.

• Okegawa Mine Theater cinema closes.

• Maruzen and Shin-Toshi Life propose relocating and enlarging the library and combining it with a bookstore.

• Basic agreement signed with Maruzen.

• Okegawa City Assembly approves supplementary budget including about 387 million yen for library improvements.

• Centre temporarily closes for renovation until 30 September.

• Reopens with OKEGAWA honプラス+ on the 3rd floor, combining Maruzen Okegawa and the enlarged library.

• Library renamed Okegawa City Central Library.

• Official website renewed.

A community lifestyle hub combining food, fashion, culture and health services, directly connected to Okegawa Station.

• Tobu Store supermarket

  Core grocery and food tenant.

• Maruzen Okegawa bookstore

  Large bookstore on the 3rd floor, part of OKEGAWA honプラス+.

• Okegawa City Central Library

  Municipal library on the 3rd floor, co-located with Maruzen.

• Okegawa City Hall west-exit liaison office

  Municipal administrative service point.

• Clinic mall

  Medical and health services on the 4th floor.

1. 1おけがわマイン 公式ホームページokegawamine.com
2. 2おけがわマインについて | おけがわマインokegawamine.com
3. 3Okegawa Mine - Wikidatawikidata.org
4. 4パトリア桶川店 - Wikipediaja.wikipedia.org