Back in 1945 almost nothing stood here. Now Nagasaki is a thriving city and its heart is changing as well. Under the slogan “fun to live in Nagasaki” a massive ¥50 billion project will be built, including a football stadium for V-Varen.

This brand new football stadium in Nagasaki is expected as part of a major revitalisation project at the Urakami riverfront. It's a symbolic location, known primarily for the proximity (around 1 km) of ground zero, where the nuclear bomb was dropped in 1945.

Of course today it's part of a vibrant and thriving city. The site already received improved road grid (2011) and in 2022 the superfast Shinkansen train will arrive within a few-minute walk from the plot. It's thus time for the old Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plant (seen below) to make way for new development, without room for industry anymore.

Along the “fun to live in Nagasaki” motto proposed by Japanet, the plot will largely be occupied by leisure and commercial uses. In terms of floor space, however, office space will be dominant (18,400 m²) and commercial will follow (17,900 m²).

Most of these uses will be packed into two towers. The northern one (115m, 34 floors) will house 300 apartments and a hotel with 300 rooms, while the southern one (150m, 36 floors) will comprise shopping centre, multi-level parking and offices on top.

The stadium itself, to be designed by Takenaka Corporation, will use more of the land than both towers combined and will not be built exactly along the plot, rather in tilted to fit the north-south axis. This creates minor spatial constraints in two corners, hence the octagonal shape.

The stadium's final shape is likely to change, however, as groundbreaking is only expected to take place in 2021 and delivery only in 2023. It's not clear what the final cost of the stadium itself would be, however the entire project is expected to cost ¥50 billion ($456 million).

With 23,000 seats the stadium will become home to V-Varen, the football team currently into its first J1 League season. While it might not be filled to capacity every game, last season's 5,900+ per game in the 2nd league (with 22,000+ at peak) shows promising progress for this recently-successful team.