On September 16, the City of Yokohama released a draft master plan to redevelop the aging Mitsuzawa Park. A new football stadium with a capacity of roughly 20,000 will be built on the site of the current athletics stadium, using a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) scheme at a total cost of ¥38 billion, with completion targeted for fiscal 2032. The existing NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Stadium lacks a roof and does not meet J.League facility standards; once the new stadium is complete, it will be converted into a facility mainly for public/community use. On 5ch, commenters raised points about the scale and cost — “it’s a great location within walking distance of Yokohama Station, yet 20,000 seats isn’t enough,” “if they’d built it sooner it would have been cheaper” — while others compared the plan to Kawasaki Frontale’s project to convert Todoroki into a football-only stadium, and debated how the Yokohama-based clubs would end up sharing the venue.
On the 16th, the City of Yokohama released its draft “Mitsuzawa Park Redevelopment Master Plan” to coincide with the City Council’s GREEN×EXPO Green Committee session.
The plan calls for redeveloping the aging Mitsuzawa Park, including building a new football stadium with a capacity of roughly 20,000 on the site of the current athletics stadium.
Facilities at Mitsuzawa Park have been aging badly, with the athletics stadium now 45 years old and NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Stadium over 60 years old. NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Stadium’s stands also lack a roof, meaning it fails to meet J.League stadium standards — another issue the redevelopment aims to address.
Source: qoly.jp / Original article here
You can walk there from Yokohama Station
The city has zero sense
For Yokohama FC, 20,000 is plenty — just rent Nissan Stadium for the rare big draws
Mitsuzawa sits on that hilly, valley-like terrain — probably not enough flat space to build anything bigger
> You can walk there from Yokohama Station
More like mountain climbing
Should've just built it sooner
Ten years ago even Panasonic Stadium Suita only cost ¥14 billion
Fukuda Denshi Arena was only ¥8 billion to build
Chiba City really nailed the timing
Then there's no reason to spend tax money on a new stadium
Even with local allocation tax grants offsetting it, they're losing nearly ¥30 billion
The FY2026 total budget is ¥4.08 trillion, so it's no big deal 🤑
Plus they've set aside ¥1.5 billion for next month's mayoral election after the harassment resignation 😅
Well, this is the city that killed off the Flügels (Yokohama Flügels, the club dissolved via forced merger in 1998)
That's just what a city where people actually gather looks like
Comparing it to Akita is a bit harsh, honestly
Well, obviously —
Yokohama city alone has 3.3 million people,
while all of Akita prefecture barely has
1 million, if that
Kawasaki already has its own project underway to convert Todoroki into a football-only stadium
Just hand Yoko-koku (a mocking nickname for Nissan Stadium, swapping "koku" from "national" for a homophone meaning "cruel") over to track and field
Yoko-koku, Ajinomoto Stadium, Hiroshima's Edion Stadium — track and field only ever gets to be the star at big events, then dumps the cleanup and upkeep on soccer
Still, even 20,000 is plenty — Yoko-koku is just that unusable for soccer
Both Marinos and FC should play here except for the rare big occasion
Building a giant athletics stadium in a spot like that was clearly a mistake
Splitting it into separate venues for track, public use, and pro ball games is the best way to go
"Use" my ass lol — if it's not for public benefit, build it with your own money
But the cost would probably balloon like crazy
The site's tight, but the surrounding public transit couldn't handle 30,000 people either
Even pushing it, 25,000 is probably the realistic ceiling
They'll never recoup the cost
Seriously though, Mitsuzawa is the only football-capable stadium in Yokohama that can actually host fans
and there's barely a real athletics stadium either
Because of that, Mitsuzawa currently gets worked through 100-120 matches a year despite having natural grass, and there are still sports teams that can't even get access to it
This announcement is the city's formal plan, years in the making, to fix exactly that
Background and Key Points
This plan is part of a broader redevelopment of Mitsuzawa Park as a whole, and it’s easy to overlook that the existing NHK Spring Mitsuzawa Stadium isn’t being torn down — it will remain standing as a public-use facility even after the new stadium is completed. Some thread commenters argued there’s “no reason to spend tax money on a new stadium,” but the plan’s actual aim is to separately address two distinct problems: replacing the aging athletics stadium (45 years old) and dealing with the existing football venue’s lack of a roof, which fails J.League standards — the two facilities will coexist with distinct roles. The ¥38 billion construction cost also looks steep next to Fukuda Denshi Arena (about ¥8 billion, opened 2005) or Panasonic Stadium Suita (about ¥14 billion, opened 2015), but rising material and labor costs have driven up public construction costs across the board in recent years, making simple comparisons difficult. Mitsuzawa Park’s hilly, uneven terrain also limits how much the site can be expanded, and the debate over capacity can’t really be separated from that constraint.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinosupo+) thread “Yokohama’s New Soccer Stadium: City Releases Master Plan! ¥38 Billion Project for 20,000-Capacity Venue Under PFI Scheme, Targeting Completion in FY2032.”
