A Home for the Future

As the Club celebrates its fifth birthday in its Azabudai home this month, iNTOUCH traces its inception back to the 1990s.

The 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck Kobe in the predawn hours of January 17, 1995, not only decimated the port city, but also forced Japan’s engineers to rethink some of their principles of quakeproof construction.

The disaster left more than 6,400 people dead and thousands of buildings destroyed, including a number of elevated expressways. The engineering reports made for disturbing reading. Reinforced concrete buildings constructed before the stricter 1981 building code fared especially badly. In fact, 30 percent of structures built between 1971 and 1975 either collapsed or were irreparably damaged.

The Azabudai Club was rebuilt during this precise period. In the aftermath of Kobe, the Club arranged for structural engineers to inspect the facilities. They expressed particular concern about the separate Recreation Building. When a Membership survey the following year revealed high levels of dissatisfaction with various aspects of the facilities, the Board of Governors decided to think seriously about the Club’s future.

The Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) was set up in 1997 and set about looking for an alternative site on which to build a new facility. Club governor Jerry Rosenberg, 66, was a member of the committee.

“The initial work was to look for a greenfield site,” he says. “The main reason for doing it was it would allow us, in theory, to build a building and, on a certain day, we could move from here to there and everything would be great. And then we would sell this building off.” As Members continued to call for improvements to the facilities, the Club bought the adjoining Azabu Towers apartment complex in 2001. The purchase would prove significant. “Once we had that, the footprint [of the land increased] and the possibilities changed,” Rosenberg says.

Eventually opting to redevelop its Azabudai site, the LRPC formulated a plan with the Club’s redevelopment partners of Mitsubishi Estate, Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei and Takenaka Corporation to temporarily relocate the facilities to Takanawa for the duration of the construction of the new building.

The Club then began the search for an architect. The American design firm behind the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Pelli Clarke Pelli, was selected from 28 contenders.

Speaking to iNTOUCH in 2008, three years after winning the contract, Fred Clarke said he saw the Club “as a big house for a big, sprawling, complicated family.” That vision, Rosenberg says, is evident in the building’s interior finishes.

“So why are there bookcases in the Winter Garden? Why is there a fireplace in the Winter Garden? It’s because they wanted that to feel like the living room in your home. They wanted to create that atmosphere but also within an architecturally dynamic and impressive place,” he explains.

The LRPC provided Pelli Clarke Pelli with an ambitious list of possible facilities and amenities for the new structure. “Our wish list was 150 percent of what we could actually build,” says Rosenberg, who joined the Club in 1991. There were also serious, longstanding problems, including insufficient parking, inadequate separation of casual and formal facilities and meager family and fitness offerings, to be solved in any new design.

Once the Membership voted in favor of the redevelopment plan in 2006, the Club’s temporary home in Takanawa was built the following year. At the end of 2007, Members and staff bid farewell to the building in Azabudai that had witnessed so many parties, holiday events, weddings and business deals since the early 1970s.

Over the next three years, Pelli Clarke Pelli’s mesmerizing design began to take shape on the site that had been home to the Club since 1954. At the grand opening of the $250 million facility on January 18, 2011, US Ambassador John Roos, the Club’s honorary president, called the building “truly spectacular.”

During a visit to the Club in 2013, Frank Vain, president of the private club consultants the McMahon Group, had high praise for the Club’s “zoning” approach to its family and adult areas. “I think there’s a lot here that suggests that this building and this facility is the club of the future,” he said.

“Everybody believed that we needed something that would take us into the next 50 years, and I think we accomplished that,” Rosenberg says. “It’s a fantastic building and we should be proud of it.”

Back & Forward

John Durkin
President
The last five years...
I can park my car without the hassles of the old Club parking lot, such as time limits, excessive waiting and overtime penalties. Fitness is no longer a mousetrap; I can swim all year-round; and when the weather is nice, I can eat and enjoy a bottle of 50 percent-off wine on the American Bar & Grill terrace while watching the sun set.

The next five...
We will evolve with the changing requirements of the Members. For example, as DVDs slip into history, that B1 space will be used for a more relevant purpose. We will also continue to improve options for families, innovate and refresh our menus and keep up with the latest technology and trends in fitness. Most importantly, we will continue to build the community of our home away from home.

Jesse Green
Second vice president
The last five years...
I only continue to use the Club more. When the Club moved to its temporary location in Takanawa, we resided only minutes away. Once the Club moved back to Azabudai, we decided that the Club was so much a part of our life that we moved with it.

The next five...
The Club’s financial situation is sound, and membership enrollment and Member satisfaction is at an all-time high. There’s no time like the present to continue investing in the value that our Members receive from our Club. In the months that follow, we’ll be enhancing our food and beverage offerings, expanding our recreation facilities and identifying new ways to continue giving back to our Member owners. It’s going to be an exciting few years ahead.

Hiroshi Miyamasu
Treasurer
The last five years...
Compared with the Club’s Takanawa period, I use our facilities much more frequently and with a greater variety of people. I use the Fitness Center, Sky Pool and Library and take my family, friends and business clients to American Bar & Grill, CHOP and, occasionally, Traders’. The Club is private, convenient and reasonably priced.

The next five...
In the next five years, our Azabudai facilities will enter their next phase. After resolving our financial and membership issues and overcoming challenges triggered by the global financial crisis and the triple disaster of 2011, the Club’s financials are strong and the number of Members is reaching its peak. And with the Tokyo Olympics approaching, I am sure that the Club will be further energized. I feel optimistic about our future.

Mary Saphin
First vice president
The last five years...
The new Club has such amazing facilities and I always love being up in the Sky Pool, especially in the rain and heat after the two previous Club pools were open to the elements. Once the pool hours are extended this year, I plan on using the pool more frequently. I work and my usage of the Club reflects this. I use the Fitness Center, Library and my current favorite hangout, CHOP Bar, more in the late afternoons and evenings. I try to join the First Friday events when my and my husband’s schedules allow. In other ways, my usage hasn’t changed. The Club remains my community center, where I meet friends, old and new, and where my family loves to come when they visit.

The next five...
I hope to see some rapid changes to meet the needs of the increasing number of Members with young families through changes to food offerings, restaurant options, activities and classes and fitness facility hours. We must also start providing opportunities, activities and interests for a far greater diversity of Members, including professional singles and the growing number of families where both partners work. We need to recognize that we have families from a variety of backgrounds, and we should move beyond providing programs and activities for just the stereotypical expatriate working husband and nonworking wife with kids at international school.

Michael Benner
Secretary
The last five years...
The Club has become an integral part of my family’s life. I use the Club interchangeably for fitness, dining, entertainment and business. As my young sons grow, they are using the Club’s Library and recreation, entertainment and family dining facilities regularly. We all enjoy the flexibility of the Club’s unique and healthy family dining options. Most importantly, our social circles have grown considerably through the Club community. Whether breaking bread with a business partner, mingling at the superb First Friday events, having a steamer after a workout or enjoying a beer at Traders’, the Club is a great place to see friends and make new ones.

The next five...
The Club is on a great path, both fiscally and socially. We will look to improve our programs and offerings to be recognized as “best in Japan” (or better) among membership clubs. With recreation consistently identified as a key reason for joining the Club, plans are underway to improve our fitness facilities and offerings. After the success of the launch of CHOP, we are shifting our focus to family dining and American Bar & Grill. We will constantly review our facilities for Member relevance and value, especially as we near an optimal level of 4,000 Members. And with a growing sense of community at the Club, we will work to cultivate this further through more opportunities for Members to interact with one another.

Words: Nick Jones
Governor portraits: Yuuki Ide