5 Park-PFI Success Cases — From Large Urban Parks to Cities of 23,000 Residents [2026 Edition]

Five successful cases of Park-PFI (Public Solicitation Management System) have been selected, ranging from large to small parks. These cases demonstrate that the common belief — "Park-PFI only works for large parks" — is mistaken.

For an overview of the Park-PFI framework, see What Is Park-PFI (Public Solicitation Management System)?.

Three-Phase Sounding and Incentive Design

The three-phase sounding adopted at Kaiseizan Park represents one of the most carefully structured public-private dialogue designs in Japan's Park-PFI record.

Phase 1: Trial Sounding (October 2020)

Private operators were given the opportunity to actually conduct business and hold events within the park in a social experiment format. Participants — companies and NPOs — were exempted from park usage fees for one month (9:00–21:00) and received a +5 point bonus in the subsequent public tender evaluation.

The significance of this incentive design is substantial. In a 500-point evaluation, +5 points amounts to just 1%, but operators who participated and gained firsthand knowledge of the park's conditions produced proposals that were concretely different from those who did not. The bonus functioned primarily as a catalyst to draw in serious operators early.

Phase 2: Pre-Sounding (September 2021)

The purpose was to capture private-sector needs and intentions at the feasibility study stage. Opinions were gathered broadly through email inquiry. Concerns raised by the private sector and analysis of proposal feasibility at this stage fed directly into the design of the Phase 3 public solicitation guidelines.

Phase 3: Market Sounding (January 2022)

Conducted immediately before the public solicitation guidelines were finalized. Feedback was obtained on the project scheme, enabling final adjustments to make conditions more amenable to private-sector participation. Participants received a +3 point bonus in the public tender evaluation.

The approximately four-year preparation period from planning (March 2020) to opening (April 2024) was substantial, but without this careful three-phase public-private dialogue, the competitive public tender with 2 joint business entities would likely not have been achievable.

Evaluation Criteria Structure (500-Point Rubric)

The public tender evaluation uses a 500-point rubric plus 8 incentive bonus points. The structure of this scoring system itself communicates what Koriyama City prioritizes.

Minimum threshold: All evaluators' combined score must reach 60% or more of the total possible score, AND each of "Overall Project Plan," "Facility Development," and "Management Operations" must individually reach 60% or more.

The noteworthy element is the 40 points allocated to "revenue contribution." Park-PFI is not simply a system for attracting commercial facilities — the return of private-sector revenues to park maintenance and improvement is the institutional foundation. This allocation explicitly embeds that principle into the evaluation criteria.

Consortium Structure: Designing the "Major Firm × Local" Combination

The selected Daiwa Lease Group consortium (operating name: Kaiseizan Frontier Partners) consists of 5 companies.

Daiwa Lease serves as the representative, bringing national operational expertise, while 3 Koriyama-based local companies form the JV's core. The inclusion of local companies is not merely a gesture toward community contribution — it is a functional decision that secures local content planning capability (a.ru.ku Publishing) and on-the-ground construction capacity (Hakko Construction, Sakura Engineering).

The "employment considerations (10 points)" in the evaluation criteria also signals that local job creation is an explicit dimension of the assessment.

Revenue Facility Business Mix

The facilities opened following selection include a café, garden goods shop, bakery, ramen restaurant, and other shops totaling 5 establishments, plus a multipurpose space. With an annual footfall of approximately 1.4 million visitors, food and beverage anchors a vitality-focused facility cluster.

Structural Success Factors

Branding "the northernmost" as a unique asset: Mutsu City's position at the tip of the Shimokita Peninsula was reframed from a weakness into a strength. Using movable trailer houses kept initial investment low, while the "northernmost glamping on Honshu" positioning enabled premium pricing through scarcity — a textbook case of turning geographic peripherality into a brand advantage.

Local company leadership: Rather than a major general contractor or PPP specialist firm, a local real estate company took the lead as representative operator. A proposal grounded in local context successfully transformed an underused park into a combined tourism and community space. Having a locally rooted company as the long-term operator also enhances stability over the 20-year project period.

What this case demonstrates: In a regional city of 56,000, Park-PFI is viable with minimal capital investment if the business model is built around a scarce, distinctive positioning. The key is identifying a business type that can command premium prices per visitor rather than relying on high visitor volume.

Structural Success Factors

Integrating facility replacement with Park-PFI: The project's starting point was the integrated design of two needs: the "administrative challenge" of replacing an aging municipal hot spring facility, and the "institutional opportunity" of introducing private-sector energy through Park-PFI. By redesigning the hot spring facility as a composite complex combining accommodation, restaurant, and sauna, financial viability was secured even in a market of 23,000 residents.

Monetizing local resources: The hot spring — a location-specific resource — serves as the primary revenue driver, which is the structural reason why the project worked on the small footprint of a 2ha neighborhood park. When "non-transplantable local resources" such as hot springs are located adjacent to or within a park, Park-PFI becomes an exceptionally powerful vehicle.

The significance of the local investment model: With Kadaru Mirai, a locally funded townscape company, at the core of the SPC, revenues circulate within the community. When external capital enters, revenues tend to flow out of the region; with a local investment model, both employment and revenue remain in the community. This "local circulation" design has high replicability for small municipalities.

What this case demonstrates: Park-PFI is viable even in municipalities of around 20,000. The prerequisite, however, is a strong locally distinctive resource — a hot spring, scenic landmark, or similar asset — that can serve as the revenue core. Unlike Kaiseizan Park's model of 1.4 million annual visitors, this approach works by raising per-visitor spending rather than maximizing footfall.

Structural Success Factors

Overcoming constraints through vertical design: The challenge of a 0.92ha narrow site was that flat utilization would force park functions and commercial facilities to compete for space. The solution was to stack uses vertically — daily living infrastructure (supermarket) on the ground floor, park functions (sports, leisure) on the upper floor. Becoming the first multilevel urban park in western Japan also generated media attention that benefited tenant attraction and public awareness.

Agility of the local SPC: A sports club and retailer — two companies from different sectors — formed an SPC, enabling each party's core business (sports facility visitors and daily grocery shoppers) to cross-fertilize and build mutual footfall. This self-contained local structure, without relying on major firms, enabled the city to secure approximately ¥14 million in annual revenue from a sub-hectare site.

What this case demonstrates: With an area of 0.25ha or more — meeting the national subsidy eligibility threshold — Park-PFI applies even to urban parks under 1ha. Small site area is not a disqualifying factor; vertical design is the solution.

Structural Success Factors

Packaging as a conceptual breakthrough: Five 0.25ha neighborhood parks are individually almost certain to be financially unviable. However, by designing them as a single combined project, the scale and potential returns sufficient for private-sector entry were created.

Why does this matter? For municipalities with multiple small neighborhood parks (which describes most Japanese cities and towns), soliciting each park individually often ends with zero applicants. Packaging multiple parks into one project is a scheme design technique that converts individually unviable projects into viable ones — and it is directly replicable across other municipalities.

What this case demonstrates: Even neighborhood parks at the minimum area requirement (0.25ha) become viable under Park-PFI when packaged together. Municipalities with only small parks are not excluded from consideration.

Analysis of the 5 cases reveals six typologies of successful Park-PFI in smaller parks.

Two structural success factors are common across all 5 cases.

1. Phased sounding

The three-phase approach at Kaiseizan Park is the most systematic example, but in all other cases as well, some form of private-sector dialogue took place before the public tender. There are no successful cases in which "going straight to public tender" worked. What is especially important is designing some form of incentive for sounding participation — whether bonus points or preferred conditions — to attract serious operators early.

For detailed guidance on sounding design, see Sounding Design Template.

2. Embedding local businesses in the consortium

In 4 of the 5 cases, local companies serve as the JV representative or core entity. Embedding local businesses produces three effects:

• Planning quality: Local companies with deep community knowledge generate proposals better matched to local needs
• Local economic circulation: Revenue, employment, and construction work are more likely to remain within the community
• Long-term operational stability: Organizations rooted in the region are better positioned to sustain 20-year operations

For these success factors to function, however, the preconditions described above — footfall, local resources, preparation time, and private-sector interest — must be in place. Copying only the "approach" of a case without matching preconditions will not produce the same result.

How to Write Park-PFI Solicitation Guidelines

The 10 statutory items and how to use the MLIT template — the document that activates these success factors

Park-PFI Market Sounding Practical Guide

How to design 3-phase sounding that attracts serious private-sector operators early

---

There is much to learn from these cases, but whether the same can be achieved at your park is a separate question. The necessary first step is to accurately assess the preconditions for your park: Is annual footfall sufficient? What local resources exist? Will private operators step forward?

ISVD provides free support for the early stages of Park-PFI implementation, from sounding design to project scheme development.

References

Public Solicitation Management System (Park-PFI) (2024)

Park-PFI Case Studies for Small-Scale Parks (FY2024 Workshop) (2024)

Kaiseizan Park Park-PFI Project (2022)

Kaiseizan Park Public Solicitation Guidelines (April 2022) (2022)

Daiwa Lease: Kaiseizan Park Case Study (2024)