Groundbreaking Ceremony Held at J-Village Station in Fukushima

May 22, 2018

Fukushima- A ceremony was held on Tuesday to start work to build a new railway station near the J-Village national soccer center in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan.

The station is planned to be in service in April 2019 in line with the full reopening of the soccer center, located in the Fukushima towns of Naraha and Hirono.

"In order for our region to be revitalized and become a new and attractive area, I hope that the reopening of J-Village and the building of the new station will make substantial contributions," Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto said in a speech at the ceremony.

The station straddling Naraha and Hirono will be used only when events are held at the soccer center. Visitors will take a two-minute walk from the station to the entrance of J-Village.

The platform will be long enough to accommodate a 10-car express train.

Opened in 1997, J-Village was used as a training field for Japan's national team.

Following the March 2011 nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant, the center served as a disaster response task base. Work to restore the facility began last year.

It will be used as a training camp site for Japan's male and female teams ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Railway station development work is estimated to cost a total of 1.5 billion yen, paid for one-third each by a group of eight municipalities in the Pacific coastal area of Fukushima, the prefecture and East Japan Railway Co. <9020>, or JR East. Jiji Press