GGRAsia – Osaka IR land lease set at US$18mln annually: mayor

Osaka IR land lease set at US$18mln annually: mayor

Dec 16, 2022 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck

The city mayor for Osaka, in Japan, said on Thursday that the annual land lease for a gaming resort in that Japanese metropolis would in likelihood be JPY2.52 billion (US$US$18.3 million) per year. Ichiro Matsui stated that such amount was based on reports from four different real estate appraisal companies, according to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

The mayor was speaking at a press conference about Osaka’s integrated resort (IR) plan. Osaka has teamed with United States-based casino operator MGM Resorts International and Japan’s Orix Corp as its private-sector partners for a tilt at a casino resort.

The project, to be developed at Yumeshima (pictured in a file photo), an artificial island in Osaka Bay. has been described as JPY1.08-trillion (US$7.90- billion at current exchange rates) investment.

In his Thursday comments, Mr Matsui said the IR promoters would pay monthly, JPY428 per square metre of land, totalling about JPY210.6 million per month. That would amount to just above JPY2.52 billion a year, he added.

The official noted that before the request-for-proposal process, “multiple operators had asked the city to lease the land rather than to sell it”.

He added: “The city asked four real estate appraisal companies to suggest the lease price. But all of them told us that it was not possible to suggest a separate price specifically for IR purposes.”

“Therefore, was asked the companies to suggest the price based on an ordinary commercial development purpose,” said Mr Matsui. “It has been a legitimate and reasonable way of doing the appraisal process,” he stated.

The mayor had flagged last month that the national authorities had asked for more information concerning the proposed site at Yumeshima.

Last week, the governor of Osaka prefecture has said that “at this moment” the proposed IR plan would still be able to open “between autumn and winter of financial year 2029,” and the date had “not been affected by the prolonged examination” by the national government of the metropolis’ IR District Development Plan.