Japanese property executives smiled as they filed into the plush new 49th floor conference room to gaze across a city they think is finally emerging from a 14-year price slump towards the shining snow on distant Mount Fuji.
"This is the first time I've seen it properly in a decade," one said of the fine view of Japan's iconic volcano.
Tokyo has built upwards in the last year at a pace not seen since the 1980s economic boom.
Several office skyscrapers have opened, including the remodelled 37-story Marunouchi building and the 54-story Roppongi Hills complex, which recently hosted an annual gathering of Urban Land Institute members in Japan.
This fuelled fears among landlords that rents would drop just as fast.
It was dubbed the "2003 problem": a flush of new supply unwarranted by an economy only just clicking into first gear.
But Japan's biggest developers, Mitsubishi Estate Co, Mitsui Fudosan Co and unlisted Mori Building, boast 90 percent occupancies in several of their new buildings, conceived in the 1980s and begun amid the high hopes of the tech industry bubble three years ago.
Mitsubishi and Mitsui have seen their shares climb just over 50 percent from a trough in April.
"The Japanese real estate market has gone through a very sluggish period in line with Japanese economic trends," said Takayuki Hara, executive vice president of Mitsubishi Estate.
"But these days many overseas businesses are looking again at our economy, so the real estate market is getting better and better," Hara said.
The new buildings now appear vindicated as US investment banks and restructuring Japanese firms choose to leave premises often only 10 years for a prestigious address where all staff can be grouped. The mixed-use developments also offer Japan's wealthiest a chance to live near work and leisure facilities.
"We want this to be the ultimate destination for everyone in the world," said Minoru Mori, who in 1993 took over from his father as president of Mori Building and built Roppongi Hills.
"A place people want to visit before going to heaven," he added, urging fellow developers in the audience to take a guided tour that skirts a sculpture of a giant spider, an art gallery and apartment block, and ends in a shopping center.
But pride over the new projects, and a feeling that rents have bottomed out for top-grade buildings, mask lingering problems in the Tokyo property sector. Emptying older and lower-grade buildings are keeping a lid on property values to the frustration of hundreds of restructuring companies wanting to offload non-core property assets.
Central Tokyo office vacancies rose to 8.44 percent at the end of September from 6.36 percent a year earlier, according to research firm Miki Shoji Co. Average office rents fell 6.77 percent in the same period but are still the second highest in the world, slightly behind the City of London.
"People definitely feel better about the market but that's partly driven by the fact space that's gone on line has been taken up faster than people thought it would," said Sonny Kalsi, managing director of Morgan Stanley in Japan.
"There haven't been a lot of new tenants moving into the market, it's mostly people moving from old space. So rents are still soft, but there's a lot of capital out there," he said.
US investment banks and opportunity funds, labelled "vultures" by parts of the Japanese media, rushed to Tokyo five years ago hoping to pick up property from big non-performing loan sales and sell it on at a hefty profit.
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