Sources said that the Japan government "hopes to cap the cost of building the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics" at 155B yen ($1.2B), much lower than the 252B yen ($2B) projected under a recently scrapped plan, according to KYODO. The cap "will be part of a new National Stadium construction plan the government will finalize at a meeting of Cabinet ministers on Friday after the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scrapped the original plan in July amid a popular outcry over its ballooning projected cost." The sources said that the stadium’s spectator capacity "is expected to be left unchanged at 80,000 people to meet the bidding requirement" for a football World Cup tournament, which Japan hopes to host in the future. Under the envisioned plan, "the new stadium will accommodate roughly 68,000 spectators during the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020." The government "intends to make sure that the stadium will be built by April 2020." The sources said that given the IOC’s request that the venue be built by January of that year, it "plans to ask a yet-to-be-named contractor to propose shortening its construction schedule" (KYODO, 8/27). REUTERS' Takashi Umekawa wrote the government "is still divided over whether to install air-conditioning facilities in the stadium," and the final figure for the cap will likely move between 154B yen ($1.2B) and 164B yen ($1.3B), depending on that decision. Earlier this month, Japan "approved guidelines for its new Olympic stadium, vowing to build an athlete-friendly stadium as cheaply as possible" (REUTERS, 8/27).
