August 29, 2015
The Abe government on August 28 announced that a new national athletic stadium, the centerpiece of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, will be constructed at the revised price tag of 155 billion yen. The construction cost for the stadium was lowered from the previous 252 billion yen, but is still two times higher than the cost of the stadiums built in Beijing and London. The general public will not readily accept this revision.
The revised 155 billion yen budget will be only used for the construction of the stadium building. It does not include spending in areas in association with the construction. Although Prime Minister Abe boasted that the government succeeded in reducing the construction cost drastically, the cost still exceeded the initial 130 billion yen estimate. A group of architects, including world famous architect Maki Fumihiko, has insisted that there is no need to use any more than 130 billion yen for building the stadium.
Regarding financial sources, the government’s announcement indicated its stance to impose part of the construction cost on the Tokyo Metropolitan government. It also stated that revisions will be made only to the design for the stadium, which means that other construction-related plans, including the demolition of the Tokyo government-owned public housing complex near the vicinity, will be maintained.
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On the same day, Japanese Communist Party member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Yoshida Nobuo at a meeting of the assembly special committee on the 2020 Summer Games urged the Tokyo government to request the national government to totally revise the construction of the new stadium so that residents of the public housing facility can continue to live there.
Past related articles:
> Tokyo JCP to Olympic Minister: Don’t demolish public housing complex to build Olympic stadium [August 5, 2015]
> PM Abe gives up costly Olympic stadium construction plan [July 18, 2015]
The revised 155 billion yen budget will be only used for the construction of the stadium building. It does not include spending in areas in association with the construction. Although Prime Minister Abe boasted that the government succeeded in reducing the construction cost drastically, the cost still exceeded the initial 130 billion yen estimate. A group of architects, including world famous architect Maki Fumihiko, has insisted that there is no need to use any more than 130 billion yen for building the stadium.
Regarding financial sources, the government’s announcement indicated its stance to impose part of the construction cost on the Tokyo Metropolitan government. It also stated that revisions will be made only to the design for the stadium, which means that other construction-related plans, including the demolition of the Tokyo government-owned public housing complex near the vicinity, will be maintained.
**********
On the same day, Japanese Communist Party member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Yoshida Nobuo at a meeting of the assembly special committee on the 2020 Summer Games urged the Tokyo government to request the national government to totally revise the construction of the new stadium so that residents of the public housing facility can continue to live there.
Past related articles:
> Tokyo JCP to Olympic Minister: Don’t demolish public housing complex to build Olympic stadium [August 5, 2015]
> PM Abe gives up costly Olympic stadium construction plan [July 18, 2015]
