SSAWS
The largest indoor ski slope in the world when it opened outside Tokyo in 1993, a 500-metre refrigerated hangar that lost money from the start, closed in 2002 and was demolished to make way for Japan's first IKEA.
- Region
- Chiba Prefecture
- Country
- Japan
- Status
- closed
- Year opened
- 1993
- Year closed
- 2002
- Reason for closure
- It opened just after the Japanese asset price bubble burst and never came close to its projections. Attendance fell from one million in the first year to 700,000 in the second against the 1.3 million a year it needed to break even by 2018, and with running costs of around 40 million US dollars a year it lost an average of 16.7 million dollars annually. It closed on 30 September 2002.
History
LaLaport Skidome SSAWS - the name an acronym of Spring Summer Autumn Winter Snow - stood at Funabashi in Chiba Prefecture, about half an hour east of central Tokyo. Mitsui built it for 400 million US dollars and it opened on 15 July 1993: a refrigerated hangar 500 m long, 100 m wide and 100 m tall, giving a skiable vertical drop of 80 m over three graded slopes pitched at 20.1, 15 and 10 degrees and served by two lifts. It was the largest indoor ski slope in the world, and it arrived at exactly the wrong moment, opening as Japan's asset price bubble finished deflating. A million people came in the first year and 700,000 in the second, against the 1.3 million a year it needed to break even by 2018, and at 40 million dollars a year to run it bled an average of 16.7 million dollars annually. It closed on 30 September 2002 and was pulled down in 2003. Japan's first large-format IKEA opened on the site on 24 April 2006, so unlike almost every other entry here there is nothing left to visit - the building itself was the resort, and it is entirely gone. It is included as one of the most complete losses in skiing: a mountain built indoors, used for nine years, and erased.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Two ski lifts served the indoor slope. Their type and manufacturer are not recorded in accessible sources; both went with the building in the 2003 demolition |
Runs
- Advanced slope (Advanced)
- Intermediate slope (Intermediate)
- Beginner slope (Beginner)
Sources and further reading
More in Japan
Location
35.6815, 139.9919