OSAKA -- The group of companies led by trading giant Sumitomo Corp. plans to build a second shopping mall along the road linking Osaka's Universal Studios Japan theme park and the JR Universal City Station, possibly next year, group officials said Friday.
At present, shopping mall Universal City Walk Osaka, which has various restaurants and casual clothing stores, operates along the same path.
The Sumitomo group plans to arrange for game arcades, restaurants, clothing shops and other commercial tenants to fill the third to fifth or sixth floors of the envisioned building, the officials said. Each floor is to have 5,000 sq. meters of space, they said.
The group has proposed that operators of movie theaters become tenants at the building, they said. If this happens, then they would be given space on the sixth floor or above.
The theme park opened to the public March 31 as the first Hollywood movie theme park outside the United States. Universal Studios Inc. of the U.S. has a 24 percent equity stake in USJ Co.