Introduction
On 21 July 2024, a new South Exit opened at Shibuya Station, a few steps from Shibuya Sakura Stage. It has made my session room in Shibuya much easier to reach, so I want to pass the information on.
Shibuya Station is one of the busiest stations in the world, with four railway companies and eight lines running through it, and around 2.28 million people passing through each day. It has also been under redevelopment for more than a decade. The layout keeps changing, and the walk from the platform to the street is rarely the same for long.
This piece was written in July 2024, and I have added to it what I wrote the following month, after the shops in Sakura Stage opened, so that it reads as one.
The South Exit and the Saikyo Line Platform
The old South Exit at Shibuya Station was built when the Saikyo Line platform stood 350 metres away from the Yamanote Line, and it served for some twenty-eight years. It gave easy access to places such as the JR-East Hotel Mets Shibuya and the Keiyu Orthopaedic Clinic Shibuya. But once the Saikyo Line platform was moved alongside the Yamanote Line, that exit became a long way off, and far less useful.
Shibuya Sakura Stage opened on 1 December 2023. As I wrote at the time in “Shibuya Sakura Stage Is Complete,” it made the session room easier to reach — no more going the long way around.
Two New Passageways (1 December 2023)
On 1 December 2023, the South Passage was completed, running from the JR-East Hotel Mets Shibuya to Shibuya Sakura Stage. Through the South Exit, it became simple to move between the Sakuragaoka side of the station and Sakura Stage.
The North Free Passage was completed as well, linking Shibuya Stream to Shibuya Sakura Stage, so that one can now cross easily from the Shibuya Stream side toward Sakuragaoka. A new station building is to be constructed in the middle of that passage.
The New South Exit Opens (21 July 2024)
On 21 July 2024, part of that new station building opened — the full opening is planned for 2025. The South Exit has moved 250 metres closer to the platforms, which makes a considerable difference (see the map below).
Take the escalator at the Ebisu end of the Saikyo Line or Yamanote Line platform, and you arrive at the new South Exit. From there it is under five minutes on foot to my session room. It used to take fifteen minutes, so that is ten minutes saved. The Yamanote Line platform in particular could only be reached through the Central Exit before, which makes the difference larger still.
Sakura Stage itself was about to hold its grand opening.
Thirty-Seven Shops Open at Sakura Stage (25 July 2024)
Four days later, thirty-seven new shops and restaurants opened at Shibuya Sakura Stage, a minute’s walk from the new South Exit. A few had been trading already — Starbucks, a Lawson convenience store, a 24-hour Anytime Fitness, and Fujiya Honten, a standing bar — but this was on a far larger scale.
I was travelling from 25 to 31 July, so the first time I went was 1 August. It was hard to believe it was the same neighbourhood.
Among the new arrivals are TSUTAYA BOOK STORE with its SHARE LOUNGE, a co-working space; Tokyu Store, a supermarket; KALDI Coffee Farm, which sells imported food; and the Kokokara Fine pharmacy, along with a floor of restaurants and a medical clinic. It is a convenient place to stop on the way to a session.
TSUTAYA BOOK STORE in particular is a large bookshop. The collection fills a generous space, and most paperbacks and manga you might want are there.
Conclusion
This piece has covered the opening of the new South Exit at Shibuya Station, next to Shibuya Sakura Stage, and the thirty-seven shops that opened four days later.
The work at Shibuya Station, close to a labyrinth, is set to continue until 2027, but it should grow easier to get around as it goes.
I will keep posting about the state of the work here.
Note, September 2026
I wrote this to let people know that the walk from the station had become shorter. But the fact that the walk kept changing was, once, a reason to leave Shibuya.
There were two reasons for moving to Ebisu in March 2019. One was that the session room at the time sat at the top of a hill. The other was that the demolition work in Sakuragaoka meant that any directions I sent out were out of date almost at once. I would redraw them, and by the time someone next came, the route had changed again. That went on and on. So I looked for somewhere flatter, toward Ebisu.
I came back to Shibuya in January 2023, and in December of that year Shibuya Sakura Stage was completed. The hill has not gone anywhere. But with the escalators and lifts inside the building, it no longer has to be climbed. Then in July 2024 the new South Exit opened, and the route from the JR lines became short and easy to follow.
Both of the reasons for leaving have been resolved by the completion of the same construction.
The work at Shibuya Station runs until 2027. This is not a subject that is finished.