Small Concession in Hokkaido — Strategies for Utilizing Vast Land and Idle Facilities

Hokkaido is the prefecture with the most school closures in Japan. Between FY2002 and FY2015, 688 schools closed, comprising 463 elementary schools, 153 middle schools, and 72 high schools. Since FY2016, closures have continued at a pace of 20-30 schools per year, bringing the cumulative total above 800.

Three structural reasons explain Hokkaido's exceptionally high number of school closures:

1. Vast area and dispersed settlements: Across approximately 83,000km², 179 municipalities are distributed sparsely, resulting in many small-scale schools with low student counts per school
2. Advancing demographic decline: Hokkaido's total fertility rate falls below the national average, with particularly rapid population decline in eastern and northern depopulated areas
3. Decline of coal mining and fisheries: Population decline in former mining towns (Yubari, Akabira, etc.) and fishing communities closed schools alongside their industrial base

Hokkaido Prefectural Government's Idle Facility Platform

The Hokkaido Prefectural Government's Regional Revitalization Bureau, Regional Strategy Division publicly lists idle municipal public facility information under "utilization recruitment." This platform features various facilities — closed school buildings, former government offices, former public housing, former hospitals — providing information for companies considering satellite offices, factory establishment, or business expansion within the prefecture.

Additionally, the Hokkaido Board of Education separately publishes information on former prefectural school buildings and unused land, listing facilities available for sale or lease.

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Overview of Wine Town Ikeda

Ikeda Town is a town of approximately 6,200 residents in Hokkaido's Tokachi region. Known as "Wine Town," it was the first municipality in Japan to begin wine production in 1963. While the Tokachi Wine brand enjoys national recognition, population decline and aging are advancing, making idle public facility utilization a pressing challenge.

Area Craft Hokkaido's Accompanying Support

Ikeda Town is one of seven municipalities selected for the FY2025 Small Concession Formation Promotion Project, with General Incorporated Association Area Craft Hokkaido selected as the expert partner.

Unlike major consulting firms (PwC, Deloitte, etc.), Area Craft Hokkaido is a community-focused support organization specializing in small Hokkaido municipalities. Among the seven Small Concession municipalities, Ikeda Town is the only one where a "general incorporated association" was selected as the expert, reflecting a deliberate prioritization of "accompanying support that understands local context."

Design Philosophy of the Ikeda Town Model

Ikeda Town's Small Concession envisions utilizing idle public facilities as experiential facilities linked to wine, agriculture, and food culture. The design leverages the Tokachi Wine brand to attract visitors from outside the region (tourists, workation users).

Ikeda Town's strengths:

• Nationally recognized Tokachi Wine brand
• Vast agricultural landscape of the Tokachi Plain
• Access from Tokachi Obihiro Airport (approximately 40 minutes by car)

Ikeda Town's challenges:

• Small local market of 6,200 residents
• Harsh cold-climate conditions in winter (November-March)
• Thin pool of private operators within the region

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Koshimizu Town — Former Kitayo Elementary School as Senbei Factory

In Koshimizu Town, Hokkaido, a former elementary school has been converted into a senbei (rice cracker) factory. Listed in MEXT's abandoned school reuse case collection, this model utilizes the spacious school building (classrooms, gymnasium) as food manufacturing production lines.

Conversion to food manufacturing is among the higher-success-rate reuse categories. Three reasons explain this:

1. Utilizing large floor area: Classrooms, hallways, and gymnasiums provide ample space for food production lines and warehousing
2. Existing water and electrical infrastructure: School facilities often have water and electrical infrastructure for school lunch preparation
3. Minimal winter impact: Food manufacturing is indoor work largely unaffected by snow and cold external conditions

Asahikawa City — Public Solicitation for Closed School Buildings

Asahikawa City conducts public solicitations for reuse applicants for closed school buildings. As Hokkaido's second-largest city, it offers abandoned school reuse opportunities with relatively good access. Good connectivity to Asahikawa Airport and JR Asahikawa Station, combined with a serviceable commercial catchment area as a core city in northern Hokkaido, provides relatively favorable conditions for abandoned school reuse.

CHILDHOOD — Next-Generation Indoor Attraction

Within Hokkaido, an entire closed school building has been converted into CHILDHOOD, an indoor recreation facility. As Hokkaido's first next-generation multi-attraction park, it provides indoor spaces usable even in winter, successfully attracting families with children. This case demonstrates that "indoor-complete" business types have an advantage for cold-climate abandoned school reuse.

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Three Structural Conditions

When considering idle facility utilization in Hokkaido, three conditions must be taken as premises:

Condition 1: Vast land and long distances

Hokkaido's area of approximately 83,000km² represents 22% of Japan's total. While this vastness brings the advantage of "cheap land," it also creates the disadvantage of "long distances between facilities." Closed schools in eastern Hokkaido may be 1-2 hours by car from the nearest city (Obihiro, Kushiro), making business models premised on day-trip use impractical.

Condition 2: Cold-climate maintenance costs

Winter heating and snow removal costs (November-March) are a major burden on facility operations. Kerosene heating typically costs 150,000-400,000 yen monthly, and snow removal 300,000-800,000 yen annually. Business types must be selected that can achieve profitability after incorporating these costs.

Condition 3: Depopulated area workforce shortage

More than half of Hokkaido's 179 municipalities have populations under 10,000. The absolute number of private operators within regions is small, making it structurally difficult for reuse proposals to emerge locally.

Hokkaido-Style Utilization Strategy — Three Approaches

Approach 1: Stay-based and retreat-based

For facilities in locations where day trips are impractical, stay-based and retreat-based utilization is effective. Sports camps (summer), workation, corporate training, and artist residencies target users who have motivation to "go out of their way to travel far."

Approach 2: Food manufacturing and processing

As the Koshimizu Town senbei factory case demonstrates, food manufacturing aligns well with the conditions of large floor area, existing infrastructure, and indoor work unaffected by winter. Hokkaido is a production region for agriculture, dairy, and fisheries, making conversion of closed schools into regional product processing hubs a natural concept.

Approach 3: Seasonal experiential facilities

To avoid winter operating costs, a strategy of operating as summer-only (May-October) experiential facilities is also viable. For business types leveraging Hokkaido's summer appeal — outdoor experiences, agricultural experiences, nature education programs — it may be possible to achieve annual profitability within a six-month operating window.

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Linkage with Adventure Tourism

Hokkaido is a leading region for adventure tourism (travel centered on nature experiences and outdoor sports), and concepts are expanding to use closed schools as base facilities. Utilizing closed schools as base camps for cycling, canoeing, and trekking would connect vast natural resources with existing building stock.

Potential as Workation Hubs

Post-COVID workation demand has become established to a certain degree, and Hokkaido's closed schools are strong candidates as hubs. While high-speed internet infrastructure is a prerequisite, the expansion of fiber optic service to rural areas since 2025 has lowered this barrier compared to before.

Expanding Use of MLIT Small Concession Platform

Beginning with the Ikeda Town case, it is expected that other Hokkaido municipalities will apply to the Small Concession Formation Promotion Project. Leveraging both the prefectural government's idle facility platform and MLIT's Small Concession Platform could accelerate the entire process from "facility information dissemination → expert support → commercialization."

→ For details on the Small Concession expert dispatch system, see Small Concession Expert Dispatch Guide.

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7 Small Concession Cases

Target facilities, experts, and design intent of 7 municipalities selected in FY2026

47 Abandoned School Reuse Cases

Success patterns and failure factors from MEXT data

References

Public Facilities Available for Corporate Utilization (Idle Facilities) (2025)

Closed School Building and Unused Land Information (2026)

Announcement of Expert Recruitment for Small Concession Municipalities (2026)

Abandoned School Reuse Case Collection (2025)