Kabuki-za theater to be renovated into high-rise building+

TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo - The Kabuki-za theater, the mainstay host for the Japanese traditional art of ''kabuki'' for over a century, will be given a new life as a high-rise building accommodating a theater and business offices, a draft plan for the reconstruction showed Wednesday.

The plan, submitted by cinema production company Shochiku Co. to the Tokyo
metropolitan government, indicates the famed but obsolete theater located in
Tokyo's Ginza shopping district is destined to be transformed into a
150-meter-high, 29-story building with four sub-basement floors.
The construction of the new building is scheduled to begin in October next year
for completion in March 2013.
The new building will feature barrier-free theaters on the first to fourth
floors and an open-air garden on the fifth, according to the plan, which also
envisions creating an academy designed to nurture talent for development of the
theatrical art that originated about 400 years ago.
The Kabuki-za theater opened in 1889 but its original building was destroyed
during World War II. The current structure, where a 16-month run of farewell
performances has been staged since the start of this month, was launched in
1951.
Shochiku initially planned to announce the outline of the reconstruction
project by the end of this month but has yet to publicize it, citing effects of
the deteriorating economy.
==Kyodo
2009-01-2