national

Yokohama unveils plans to build giant theme park

19 Comments
By Shannon, SoraNews24

What do you do with an abandoned army base? Turn it into a gigantic theme park, of course. At least, that’s what Yokohama is planning to do with the remains of the American army’s Kamiseya Communication Facility. For reference, that’s located about a 20-minute train ride from downtown Yokohama.

About 125 hectares of the 242-hectare plot of land will be home to the area’s largest theme park; that’s bigger than Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea combined. They’re hoping to attract 6.5 million to 13 million visitors per year – a big change for such a suburban area. The land itself is currently being used largely as farmland and rice paddies.

The project will cost an estimated 130 billion yen. There’s no schedule for when construction will start or when it will be completed, but we do know that it’s a plan that will move forward.

And as for the theme? No one is sure yet. Several city officials have said they may partner with “a famous foreign movie company,” which has prompted a guessing game among Japanese netizens.

“A Star Wars park.”

“A La La Land park.”

“Seriously? Can they make it a Marvel theme park?”

“I think it’s a USJ for the Kanto region. They can do all sorts of collaborations that you can’t do with that mouse park.”

“Warner?”

“I wish they’d make a Nintendo Land here instead of smooshing it into USJ.”

Sources: Livedoor via Hachima Kiko

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Japanese park encourages kids to play with saws, light bonfires for learning experiences

-- Universal Studios to open theme park in Okinawa, in case you get bored of the beaches

-- Sounds like Universal Studio Japan’s Nintendo zone is going to be huge!

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

19 Comments
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Do we need more theme parks? Maybe redevelop it as green open space?

12 ( +15 / -3 )

Oh my Bhudda! Just what is needed. Yet another theme park! NOT!!!

What about affordable housing for low income families? Oh wait! Not so much profit in that...

12 ( +16 / -4 )

Yokohama is a concrete jungle as it is.

How about rewilding?

12 ( +12 / -0 )

How about low cost housing?

12 ( +14 / -2 )

I was stationed at Kamiseya from 1995-1997. Yes, during WWII it was a torpedo manufacturing facility. Back in the Cold War days the Navy had extensive antenna fields in the surrounding land and used the underground portion (tunnels, bunkers, etc.) of the former torpedo plant. There was a serious underground fire resulting in the deaths of some Navy personnel. After that incident most of the underground portions were sealed off. I did have an opportunity to explore a bit of the remaining underground areas and it was massively spooky. Rumor had it, and I believe it to be true, that there are underground tunnels from the main complex to neighboring Atsugi Base, and believe this or not, all the way through the mountainous terrain to Yokosuka Naval Base.

While stationed at Kamiseya at first there were three separate Navy commands. During my two years there it was thinned down to one remaining command, Commander Patrol Wing One (CTF-72/57), and eventually even they moved to Misawa Base leaving no reason not to return the land to the Japanese. While stationed there, a large part of the unused portions of base land were leased to farmers. Other large tracks of land were for open public use, and for sure, the Japanese locals picnicked, hiked, flew kites, etc. with abandon. Japanese MLC (military liaison contract) employees described the extensive base lands as a type of Galapagos Island in the surrounding concrete jungle with numerous plants and animals living that could be found nowhere else in Kanagawa Prefecture. Another beautiful place next to the base land is Kaigun Doro (Navy Road) which runs parallel to base land all the way close to Sotsetsu Line’s Seya station. The sakura trees that line Kaigun Doro on both sides are magnificent and the location of many hanami drunkathons in my youth there.

For the life of me I cannot understand, except for greed of course, why the National and Kanagawa Prefectural governments can’t find a better way to utilize the land other than making it into an amusement park. Yes, the Machida interchange on the expressway is reasonably close by, but even so, the upgrades necessary to the surrounding roads would be massive. Also, there really isn’t a train station within reasonable walking distance either. So something would have to be done about that as well. Turn the entire lit into a nature preserve / public park instead,

11 ( +11 / -0 )

I had to look it up but 125 hectares is 1.25 square kilometers, or just over 1100m square. If that's bigger than Disneyland and Sea, its going to have to pull in a lot of customers.

I take it they must have rejected the idea of hosting one of Abe's casinos.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Another white elephant. Japan is littered with abandoned theme parks.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

This is complete madness. Already the Moomin park is a disaster, so will the Harry Potter one be, and this one hopefully will never get build. Trying to compete with Disney is utter commercial madness and with an ever declining population this is another example of letting government, local and federal, taking the losses and developers the profits.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

So they are going to make another great big traffic jam, there is no decent public transport close to this location, so its going to make an already congested area even more congested, (Tomei Yokohama Machida Interchange)you have to consider that the morons who make these dumb ideas and decisions have absolutely no brains or consideration for very much .

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Japan needs more hospitals and evacuation zones, not theme parks. Need to prepare now for the next great Kanto earthquake.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

During the war, this facility was used by the Japanese Navy to manufacture torpedoes

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Not army, US Navy

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Will make a great haikyo someday.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Here it is on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/DgEaf4kFtXW3ir2w6

I hope they don't ever do the same thing in Urawa in Saitama. There's a huge strip of land that is mostly flood control filled with farms and plant nurseries and wetlands. Great for cycling, gravel and road. If you are curious. https://goo.gl/maps/9EvpcmktNBhEx8tq5 If you zoom out you can see the fields arcing westward toward Omiya. While they won't ever get rid of the reservoir(it's new), it is the surrounding fields I am worried about. These areas are precious in large urban areas.

Too bad the right people didn't notice the Kamiseya land earlier and try to save it.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Great, theme parks across the country are doing so well these days this makes complete sense.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

@ShibuyaJay2

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing. Agreed.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Do we need more theme parks? Maybe redevelop it as green open space?

You must be joking "green open space" does not make money, so no one proffits. They wouldn't do anything that people can enjoy for FREE!!! Theme parks make MONEY and TAXES for the local and national government. Screw the clean air, trees and grass, make them pay and pay some more to be entertained and forget all their troubles!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Kami Seya wasn't an Army base. It was a Nava radio receiving facility/Naval Security Group Activity. Relatively small by base standards. I was stationed there from Jan 1980-Dec 1982.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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