I stepped down as president after 16 years. Stepping down was part of the blueprint from the very beginning.

On July 24, 2026, I resigned as Representative Director of Ogal Plaza Inc. On this day, I stepped down from the presidential role I had held for over 16 years. It is also the first day in my life that I have voluntarily stepped down from a position as president.

Writing this, many might interpret it as, "Has Okazaki retired from Ogal?" or "What a lonely milestone." However, first and foremost, there is something I want to state clearly. I have not left Ogal at all.

I continue to serve as president of the companies that bear the Ogal name: Ogal Inc., Ogal Center Inc., Ogal Developments LLC, and Mother Ogal Regional Revitalization Academy Inc. The only seat I stepped down from is the representative position of the single company called Ogal Plaza Inc. Therefore, I will continue to be involved with Ogal as a matter of course.

Having said that, I will share my honest feelings. I do not feel lonely about this resignation at all. Rather, I feel deeply relieved. This is because the arrival of this day was nothing less than the final move in the blueprint I envisioned 16 years ago.

The fact that things continue to run even after the president steps down is, for me, the greatest achievement of all.

To begin with, what was Ogal Plaza?

Before I begin my story, I must write about what the building known as Ogal Plaza actually was.

Shiwa Town, Iwate Prefecture. It is a town with a population of about 32,000, located exactly in the middle of Morioka and Hanamaki. In front of Shiwa-Chuo Station in this town, 10.7 hectares of town-owned land had long lain dormant and untouched. In 1998, although the town acquired this land for 2.85 billion yen, a 14.3 billion yen plan to consolidate public facilities was frozen due to financial difficulties, and the prime location in front of the station became a negative legacy known as "pickled land."

This land began to move in 2007. Then-Mayor Takashi Fujiwara declared the "First Year of Public-Private Partnership," and a challenge that no one in Japan had yet seriously undertaken—where the government and the private sector share roles to revitalize the area in front of the station—began. Ogal Plaza was born in 2012 as the first symbol of this.

Inside one building, the "public" functions of the town library and childcare support center coexist with "private" businesses such as the Shiwa Marche farmers' market, an ophthalmologist, a dentist, a cram school, and an izakaya. The public and private sectors operate under one roof, each managing their own affairs. From the perspective of common sense in Japan at the time, this public-private complex was a very unusual vessel.

The library, in particular, is not merely a warehouse for books. Originally rooted in the "Kodo Bunko," a collection donated by town-born author Kodo Nomura, it was designed as a library specializing in supporting agriculture and commerce, the likes of which had no precedent nationwide. Librarians would go out to farmland and shopping streets. This library later received an Excellence Award at the Library of the Year 2016 and was even presented at the American Library Association conference. A building constructed on "pickled land" in front of a station had become something introduced to the world.

Why did I entrust the project to a "vessel" rather than a person?