新潟縣廳舍, Prefectural government building in Chuo-ku, Niigata, Japan
The Niigata Prefectural Government Building is a complex in Shinko-cho, Chuo-ku, Niigata, made up of an administrative office building, a police headquarters building and a parliament building linked by corridors. The administrative tower has 18 floors above ground and one below, reaching 87.3 metres, with a light grey grid of recessed square windows above a broad pillared base.
The first Niigata prefectural office opened in 1870 on the site of the former Niigata bugyōsho, where NEXT21 now stands. That building burned down in 1880 and was rebuilt in Western style on Higashinakadōri. In 1932 a four-storey reinforced-concrete office designed by Shichirō Kiko and built by Obayashi was completed in Gakkōchō-dōri, costing about 1.62 million yen. Work on the present 18-storey building in Shinkōchō began in 1982 and finished in 1985 at a cost of about 34.5 billion yen; the old site received Niigata City Hall in 1989.
The complex is split into an administrative building, a police headquarters and a four-storey parliament hall, linked by east and west corridors. The west corridor houses the prefecture's crisis management centre, set up in 2009. In the administrative tower visitors can pick up tourism leaflets at the public information exhibition room, and the staff canteen closed in March 2020 was replaced by a ramen shop in 2021.
The complex stands in Shinko-cho, Chuo-ku, about 15 to 20 minutes on foot from JR Sekiya Station on the Echigo Line. Buses stop at Kencho, Kencho-mae and Kencho-higashi; the Shinano River water shuttle's Kencho-mae pier is a 5-minute walk. The 18th-floor observation corridor is free, open weekdays 8:30-17:15 and holidays 10:00 until sunset.
The site was once the Niigata factory of Nippon Light Metal, served by a rail spur off the Echigo Line; the plant moved to Niigata East Port in 1980, and its cleared land became the government building's plot. The spur was removed and replaced by a city road along the Shinano River's right bank.
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