Closed Schools × IT & Coworking: Ten Cases from the MEXT Casebook, Zoning and Urbanization Control Areas, Trial Satellite Offices and Grants

What to Check Before Using a Closed School as an Office

How MEXT's survey counts business and start-up support facilities, and three things to check first

MEXT's survey counts the uses of closed schools that are in use. Business and start-up support facilities number 1,207: 1,138 facilities of companies and other organizations (741 school buildings and 397 gymnasiums) and 69 start-up support facilities (48 school buildings and 21 gymnasiums). In the previous survey (as of 1 May 2021), there were 947 facilities of companies and other organizations and 73 start-up support facilities[1]. Multiple answers are allowed, and school buildings and gymnasiums are counted separately. The survey does not break down facilities of companies and other organizations, so there is no count for offices alone. In MEXT's casebook, which uses the same category, a rice cracker factory (Case 1) and a sawmill (Case 9) are also facilities of companies and other organizations. The previous survey counted schools closed in FY2002 to FY2020 and the current one schools closed in FY2004 to FY2023, so the difference cannot be read as a straight increase.

Before using a closed school as a satellite office or coworking space, check these three things first. The order is this article's own.

1. Zoning and urbanization control areas. Schools may be built in low-rise exclusive residential zones, but offices are not among the buildings allowed there
2. How the building is leased and how renovation costs are split. Even among the ten casebook cases, some are lent free, some are leased for a fee, and some were converted by the municipality
3. Communications lines. In the Suo-Oshima case, securing a high-speed network by the town laying its own optical cable across the whole town is thought to have helped bring the company in

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Ten Casebook Cases with Offices or Coworking Spaces

Uses, contract forms, renovation costs and grants of the ten cases, and the process in Suo-Oshima, Miyawaka, Yazu, Iizuna, Tateyama, Takahata and Niihama

MEXT's casebook has 47 cases. Counting the cases whose pages mention satellite offices, offices lent to entrepreneurs, rental offices, shared offices, coworking spaces or telework spaces gives ten, with the uses and contract forms below[4]. The count is this article's own; the casebook does not group cases this way.

In six of the ten cases an operator leases the building (for a fee in two, Shimada and Miyawaka), and in the other four the municipality converted it.

Renovation costs and grants used are as follows[4]. Renovation costs cover the whole facility, not only the office or coworking space.

The grants named were the programmes in place when each use began. Current national programmes are in the section on national programs below. Iizuna, Shimada, Saga and Uruma also list accommodation as a use, so they are among the six cases in the lodging article too.

Suo-Oshima: Optical Cable and a Row of Classrooms

The former Wada Elementary School, closed in March 2014, was a relatively new facility built in FY1995. Based on its comprehensive strategy for towns, people and jobs, the town had been considering attracting ICT companies using the optical infrastructure of its cable TV network. Through the prefecture, an ICT company headquartered in Tokyo approached the town; after working out terms jointly with the prefecture, the town and the company signed a location agreement in February 2016 and the satellite office opened in July that year. With no prospect of a private company bringing in a fiber network, the town had laid its own cable TV network (optical cable) across the whole town, and securing a high-speed link between the island satellite office and the head office and clients is thought to have helped bring the company in. The casebook also lists as a benefit that the classrooms are connected by a straight corridor, giving good circulation between the office, planning and development room and video conference room, so no major renovation was needed[5].

Miyawaka: The Company Designs, the City Builds

The city received a proposal to use closed schools from a corporate group with training facilities in the city and strengths in IT, and began considering a public-private initiative mainly to foster the information industry. The city and the company agreed on the concept, but their project schedules differed widely, and reconciling them was hard. To speed things up, the mayor and the company's head held direct talks and split the roles: the company paid for design, and the city carried out the facility works afterwards, which greatly cut the time the city needed for budgeting and contracting. As benefits, the casebook lists lower maintenance costs and lease revenue for the city, and no initial cost for the company because the city carried out the facility works[6].

Yazu: A Council with Residents and a Town Development Company

In its comprehensive strategy of 2015, the town considered opening satellite offices in vacant facilities. It set up a council that included local residents and a preparatory committee for a town development company that added private companies and a regional financial institution, and gathered views on the operating structure and facility development. In 2017 the town renovated the school building and lent it free of charge to a newly established town development company formed mainly by local private companies. The first floor houses a café, shops, a nursing association and community welfare groups, and the second and third floors have coworking spaces, shared offices and more. The town briefed residents and the council as the study progressed and also set up an operating council that includes local residents[7].

Iizuna: From a Residents' Study Group to a Designated Manager

In 2016 the town decided to close four elementary schools in March 2018 and consolidate them into two. Residents of the two school districts losing their schools held a study group for about two years and submitted recommendations to the town in 2017. From FY2018 the town began renovation using the Regional Revitalization Promotion Grant, opening EAST in 2020 and WEST in 2021. A town development company was established and manages and operates the facilities as the designated manager. The casebook says the company secured funding for its work by taking on part of the town's hometown tax donation operations under contract[8].

Tateyama: Leasing Part of the Building

The former Taniguchi Elementary School closed in 2002 and had been used as the town's archaeological centre and local history museum since FY2007. In FY2018 a company contacted the town after seeing the facility on MEXT's Minna no Haiko Project website, and talks began. After briefings for the town council and local residents, the town decided to lend the building to the company free of charge; the first and fourth floors are lent to the company, and the second and third floors remain the archaeological centre and local history museum. The town had no precedent for attracting satellite offices and similar facilities, and it found it hard to decide between a paid and a free lease, to lend part rather than all of the building, and to arrange how and when to move the archaeological centre[9].

Takahata: Classrooms as Offices for Entrepreneurs

The former Tokizawa Elementary School closed at the end of FY2009. In FY2015 the project was selected for the Cabinet Office's Regional Revitalization Advance-Type Grant and designated a hometown satellite office by MIC, and in October that year a school for adults opened with an NPO as its secretariat. The casebook says former classrooms make offices of a good size for entrepreneurs, so network equipment and air conditioning were installed to make the building suitable for lending. Making the building widely available to townspeople and others, including lending offices to entrepreneurs, was a first for the town's use of closed schools and raised issues such as arranging the related legal requirements, which were resolved through coordination among the departments concerned[10].

Niihama: An Action Plan as the Basis for Explanations

The former Wakamiya Elementary School closed in FY2017, was renovated in FY2020, and reopened in June 2021 as the city's hub for active lifelong living. With rental offices and coworking rooms, it supports start-ups and new industries, and it is also used as a base for remote work. Following the adoption of its comprehensive strategy, the city drew up an action plan that set the goal of developing the school as the hub. It adopted a basic plan for using the school in June 2019 and was selected for the Regional Revitalization Base Development Grant that year. The casebook says the action plan served as the basic material for gaining understanding in explanations to the city government, the community and the council and in bringing in private operators[11].

Building and City Planning Rules to Check

Change-of-use confirmation, major repairs and remodelling, zoning restrictions and permission, permission in urbanization control areas, and Fukuchiyama's district plan

Change-of-Use Confirmation, Major Repairs and Remodelling

When a building's use is changed so that it becomes a special building for a use in column (i) of Appended Table 1 and the floor area used for that purpose exceeds 200 m², the confirmation procedure applies. Column (i) of Appended Table 1 covers theatres, hospitals, hotels, schools, department stores, warehouses, car garages and similar uses, and offices are not among them.[12] Offices are also not among the uses listed in the definition of special buildings in Article 2(ii).[13] Simply turning a school into an office needs no change-of-use confirmation.

However, major repairs or major remodelling of a building with two or more storeys or a total floor area over 200 m² need confirmation before work starts. Major repairs and major remodelling mean repairs or remodelling of more than half of one or more kinds of the main structural parts of a building.[14] Check at the design stage whether the planned work falls into these. The confirmation procedure is covered in Abandoned School Use Change and the Building Standards Act.

Zoning

When the use of a building is changed, Article 48(1) to (14) (restrictions in use districts) apply.[15] The buildings that may be built in category 1 and category 2 low-rise exclusive residential zones, category 1 mid/high-rise exclusive residential zones and rural residential zones include schools (other than universities, colleges of technology, specialized training colleges and miscellaneous schools), but the only offices included are houses that double as offices or similar uses and are specified by Cabinet Order. In category 2 mid/high-rise exclusive residential zones, buildings whose floor area used for purposes other than those allowed in category 1 mid/high-rise exclusive residential zones exceeds 1,500 m², and buildings that use the third floor or above for such purposes, must not be built. In category 1 residential zones, buildings whose floor area used for such purposes exceeds 3,000 m² must not be built (in both cases, other than those specified by Cabinet Order).[16]

Each of Article 48(1) to (14) has a proviso: the restriction does not apply where the designated administrative agency grants permission, for example finding that the building will not harm a good residential environment. Before granting such permission, the agency must in principle hold a public hearing to which interested parties are summoned and obtain the consent of the building review board.[3] Check the zoning of the site with the municipality's city planning department.

Urbanization Control Areas

In an urbanization control area outside development areas with development permission, no one may rebuild a building or change its use so that it becomes a building other than those in Article 29(1)(ii) or (iii) without permission from the prefectural governor.[17] Article 29(1)(ii) covers buildings for agriculture, forestry or fisheries specified by Cabinet Order and housing for people engaged in them, and (iii) covers railway stations and other railway facilities, libraries, community halls, substations and similar buildings needed in the public interest that are specified by Cabinet Order. In this section, the prefectural governor means the mayor within a designated city or core city.[18] If you plan an office, ask the development permission office whether permission is needed and what the criteria are.

The national guidebook notes that areas where school facilities stand are sometimes subject to strict development controls, such as urbanization control areas, and advises sorting out these legal restrictions as preconditions and identifying the issues for a change of use in advance. Its example is the former Nakamutobe Elementary School in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto, which stood in an urbanization control area where a change of use or development permission was a very high hurdle. The city already had a district plan for the area, which placed the school's site in a function-inducement zone and listed shops, offices and roadside service facilities among the buildings allowed, so the use could be changed. The facility became a hands-on farming facility leased to a private operator.[19]

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National Programs You Can Use

Special local allocation tax measures for trial satellite offices, the Regional Future Grant, corporate hometown tax donations, and the Minna no Haiko Project

Trial Satellite Offices (MIC)

MIC supports municipalities that host trial work, in which employees of urban companies work in a region for roughly three days or more and share with the host municipality their specific needs for opening a satellite office, so that the municipality can attract satellite offices. When a host municipality works under the guidelines, special local allocation tax measures apply until FY2027, for up to two years per municipality. The covered costs are those for attracting urban companies to trial work, preparing the trial work environment, and activities during trial work. The amount is the lower of the general-revenue total of the covered costs and ¥10M, multiplied by 0.5 and then by a fiscal capacity adjustment. Support for a company after it formally decides to open a satellite office is excluded, and no prior application to MIC is needed.[2] Urban companies must have their head office or principal office in the three major metropolitan areas (Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Gifu, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo and Nara) and be considering opening a satellite office, among other conditions. Host municipalities are prefectures or municipalities, excluding those whose entire area lies in the existing built-up areas or suburban development zones under the National Capital Region Development Act and similar areas. Example costs for preparing the trial work environment are rent for the trial office, rental and purchase of office equipment and supplies, restoration that does not add to asset value, and surveys of suitable satellite office sites; building renovation work is not among the examples.[20]

Regional Future Grant (Cabinet Office)

The Regional Future Grant was created in the FY2025 supplementary budget. The Regional Future Promotion type broadly supports local governments' own initiatives, such as raising the added value of local industries. For non-capital projects and hub facility projects the subsidy rate is 1/2, and the guide cap on national funding for one hub facility project over its plan period is ¥1 billion for municipalities. In the document's chart of initial budgets, FY2025 shows the Grant for Creating New Regional Economies and Living Environments and FY2026 the Regional Future Grant.[21] The grant goes to local governments. A local government seeking the Regional Future Promotion type draws up a regional revitalization plan describing the projects the grant will fund, and applies to the Prime Minister for its certification.[22]

The Cabinet Office document of June 2025 said that year's Grant for Creating New Regional Economies and Living Environments (the second-generation grant) supported local initiatives including developing and promoting the use of satellite offices, and listed the Digital Garden City Nation grant (digital implementation type, regional revitalization telework type) as abolished.[23] Whether the Regional Future Grant can fund turning a closed school into a satellite office is for the municipality to check against the Cabinet Office documents, as a project in its regional revitalization plan.

In the casebook, Miyawaka, Yazu and Niihama used the Regional Revitalization Base Development Grant, Saga the Regional Revitalization Base Development Grant contributing to the productivity revolution, Miyawaka and Iizuna the Regional Revitalization Promotion Grant, Shimada the Regional Revitalization Telework Grant, and Takahata the Regional Revitalization Advance-Type Grant. All were the grants in place when each use began.

Corporate Hometown Tax Donations

When a company donates to a regional revitalization project of a local government certified by the national government, tax credits against corporate taxes reduce the company's real burden to about 10% (applicable until the end of FY2027). The Cabinet Office says the scheme can also be used to develop satellite offices, and in December 2023 it produced a casebook and guide that include examples of such development.[23]

Minna no Haiko Project (MEXT)

MEXT gathers and publishes information on closed schools across Japan that are seeking uses through the Minna no Haiko Project. It is not a subsidy. In the Tateyama case, talks began when a company saw the facility on this website and contacted the town.

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What the Kamiyama Document Says

The fiber network, twelve companies including IT ventures, the net migration gain, a renovated vacant house for trial work, a storehouse office and work-in-residence

Kamiyama town in Tokushima Prefecture completed its fiber optic network in September 2005, and twelve companies, mostly IT ventures, opened satellite offices, moved their headquarters there or founded new companies. In fiscal 2011 net migration turned positive for the first time in the history of the town. The offices the document introduces include a renovated vacant house used as a trial house where creators can work, and an office in a storehouse. It says 7% of the town's corporate tax revenue in FY2014 was related to satellite offices. It also describes work-in-residence: if there are no jobs or work locally, workers and entrepreneurs thought necessary for the town's future, people who bring their work with them, are specifically named and invited to move in.[24] The offices in this document use vacant houses and a storehouse, not closed schools.

Closed Schools × Tourism & Lodging: Inn Permits, Zoning and Fire Rules, Farm-Stay Grants, and Six Cases from the MEXT Casebook

Six casebook cases that list accommodation as a use; Iizuna, Shimada, Saga and Uruma are also among the ten cases in this article

Policy

Abandoned School Use Change and the Building Standards Act — Renovation Requirements for Welfare Facility Conversion [2026 Edition]

The floor area that triggers confirmation for a change of use, and when fire compartments, smoke control and interior finish rules apply, checked against the statutes

Guide

How to Reuse a Closed School: Survey Counts, MEXT's List of Closed Schools Seeking Uses, the Property Disposal Procedure, and National Subsidies

Survey counts and why uses stay undecided, MEXT's list of closed schools seeking uses, when property disposal needs only a report or no treasury repayment, and the national subsidy list

Guide

Subsidies for Closed School Reuse: All 6 Ministries Covered [2026 Edition]

Cost shares and eligible applicants, checked against MEXT's April 2026 list and each ministry's documents

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What to do next

When developing a school reuse plan and renovation budget, check the following matters.

Check operator interest and requirements before finalizing the use, and take prospective demand into account when developing the reuse plan.

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References

Results of the FY2024 Survey on the Utilization of Closed School Facilities (as of 1 May 2024) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2025)

Casebook on Repurposing Closed Schools (Minna no Haiko Project) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2023)

Minna no Haiko Project — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2026)

Building Standards Act (Act No. 201 of 1950) — e-Gov Legal Database (e-Gov)

City Planning Act (Act No. 100 of 1968) — e-Gov Legal Database (e-Gov)

スモールコンセッションのすすめ～遊休公的施設の利活用のための手引き～ (Recommending Small Concessions: A Guidebook for Utilizing Idle Public Facilities) — Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism; Cabinet Office (2026)

お試しサテライトオフィス−地方でのお試し勤務を支援します！ (Trial Satellite Offices: Supporting Trial Work in Regional Areas) — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2026)

お試しサテライトオフィス推進要綱 (Guidelines for Promoting Trial Satellite Offices) — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2025)

地方創生テレワークの推進に向けて (Toward Promoting Telework for Regional Revitalization) — Cabinet Office, Regional Revitalization Promotion Office (2025)

地域未来交付金について (On the Regional Future Grant) — Cabinet Secretariat Regional Future Strategy Headquarters Secretariat; Cabinet Office Regional Revitalization Promotion Secretariat (2026)

地域未来交付金制度要綱 (Regional Future Grant System Rules) — Cabinet Office and others (2026)

神山プロジェクトのポイント (Points of the Kamiyama Project) — Green Valley (published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) (2016)