Kokuyo has begun site-preparation work for a roughly ¥17.6 billion distribution center in Shiga Prefecture, a project it describes as the largest logistics base in its history. Work started September 24, the company said in its September 29 announcement.
The investment is part of a ¥34.5 billion program to strengthen domestic office-furniture supply. The new center represents about 51% of that total, calculated from Kokuyo’s announced figures. This is furniture infrastructure—not a newly announced pencil factory or pencil distribution center.
Why the second floor matters
The proposed building in Aisho will have approximately 45,000 square meters of floor space on a 66,000-square-meter site. Its two-story layout includes a dedicated ramp allowing large trucks to reach the upper warehouse floor directly.
Kokuyo links that arrangement to a practical problem: moving goods while reducing loading delays and driver waiting time. It says the low-rise design and generous handling areas are intended to improve the flow of vehicles and respond to driver working-time constraints and labor shortages.
The commercial logic is consolidation. Kokuyo plans to place a core function of its national furniture logistics network at the site, using access to major roads to improve distribution efficiency and reduce costs. The announcement sets out those goals but does not quantify the annual savings.
A 2029 operating target
Completion is scheduled for February 2029, with operation planned for September of that year. Kokuyo identifies both as current plans, subject to change; the September groundbreaking does not mean the logistics capacity is already available.
For readers following the business behind Kokuyo’s stationery and pencils, the revealing number is the allocation of capital: roughly half of this furniture-supply program is going into a single logistics hub. It shows the scale of the company beyond the stationery aisle, without telling us anything about pencil demand or pencil production capacity.
