page_title: Odaiba
section_title: Redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: Odaiba / History / Redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Odaiba bei Nacht. Von Rainbow Bridge aus gesehen. English: Odaiba, Tokyo. Seen from the Rainbow Bridge.
context_page_description: Odaiba today is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. Odaiba was initially built in this area for defensive purposes in the 1850s. The original Odaiba opened in 1860 as a port and shipyard in the city today known as Yokosuka, site of the joint Japanese-US fleet HQ. Reclaimed land offshore Shinagawa was dramatically expanded during the late 20th century as a seaport district, and has developed since the 1990s as a major commercial, residential and leisure area. Odaiba, along with Minato Mirai 21 in Yokohama, is among a few manmade seashores in Tokyo Bay where the waterfront is accessible, and not blocked by industry and harbor areas. For artificial sand beaches in the bay, Sea Park in Kanazawa-ku is suitable for swimming, Odaiba has one, and there are two in Kasai Rinkai Park area looking over to the Tokyo Disneyland.
  Daiba formally refers to one district of the island development in Minato Ward. Governor Shintaro Ishihara used Odaiba to refer to the entire Tokyo Waterfront Secondary City Center, which includes the Ariake and Aomi districts of Kōtō Ward and the Higashi-Yashio district of Shinagawa Ward.
context_section_description: The modern island of Odaiba began to take shape when the Port of Tokyo opened in 1941.
  Tokyo governor Shunichi Suzuki began a major development plan in the early 1990s to redevelop Odaiba as Tokyo Teleport Town, a showcase for futuristic living, with new residential and commercial development housing a population of over 100,000. The redevelopment was scheduled to be complete in time for a planned "International Urban Exposition" in spring 1996.
  Suzuki's successor Yukio Aoshima halted the plan in 1995, by which point over JPY 1 trillion had been spent on the project, and Odaiba was still underpopulated and full of vacant lots. Many of the special companies set up to develop the island became practically bankrupt. The collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble was a major factor, as it frustrated commercial development in Tokyo generally. The area was also viewed as inconvenient for business, as its physical connections to Tokyo—the Rainbow Bridge and the Yurikamome rapid transit line—made travel to and from central Tokyo relatively time-consuming.
  The area started coming back to life in the late 1990s as a tourist and leisure zone, with several large hotels and shopping malls. Several large companies including Fuji Television moved their headquarters to the island, and transportation links improved with the connection of the Rinkai Line into the JR East railway network in 2002 and the eastward extension of the Yurikamome to Toyosu in 2006. Tokyo Big Sight, the convention center originally built to house Governor Suzuki's planned intercity convention, also became a major venue for international expositions.
  The D1 Grand Prix motorsport series has hosted drifting events at Odaiba since 2004.
  Odaiba is one of the venues for the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics. The events to be held there under the plan include beach volleyball at Shiokaze Park, triathlon and marathon swimming at Odaiba Marine Park, and gymnastics at a new gymnastics venue.
caption: Odaiba at night, with yakatabune boats in the bay foreground
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