Roppongi Hills was unlike anything Tokyo had ever seen before. Until it opened 10 years ago, Roppongi was more often seen as a ¡°High Touch Town,¡± where businessmen partied with foreign hostesses and off-duty soldiers packed the nightclubs.
Roppongi Hills gave the area a more wholesome and stylish appeal. The developer of the project, the late property tycoon Minoru Mori, said at the time that he believed Roppongi Hills would become ¡°the ultimate destination for people all over the world.¡± While that may have been a tad hyperbolic, it certainly gave the capital somewhere special: A place where people could spend the day shopping, go to view art or take a date to a classy restaurant.
Roppongi Hills also attracted major overseas corporations such as Lehman Brothers and Google, who moved into the offices of the area¡¯s crown jewel ¡ª Mori Tower. The complex¡¯s swanky living quarters saw an influx of celebrities and company-funded expatriates, lending the area a certain cosmopolitan cachet.
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