USJ’s First-Ever Expansion: What the Old Steelworks Land Could Hold

Osaka City announced on September 1 that it will lease city-owned land beside Universal Studios Japan to the park’s operator, opening the way to the first expansion of USJ’s site since the park opened in 2001.

The plot sits on the park’s northern edge in Sakurajima 2-chome, Konohana Ward, and covers about 31,000 square meters. Nippon Steel has leased it from the city as factory land since 1999. Operations there have ended and the buildings are being demolished; the lease expires in June 2027, when the land returns to the city.

After the return, the city will run soil surveys and, if the results are clean, sign a fixed-term land lease with USJ LLC, the park’s operator, as early as April 2028. On August 31, Osaka City, Nippon Steel and USJ LLC agreed to move forward together on the soil surveys, the land return process and the framework for future development. The talks trace back to April, when USJ first approached the city with a proposal for the land.

USJ’s current site covers about 540,000 square meters, so the new ground adds 5 to 6 percent to the park. That sounds modest, until you remember how USJ has grown so far. For 25 years the park expanded inward, replacing and upgrading what already stood inside its fences: the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened in 2014 on an investment of about 45 billion yen, Super Nintendo World followed in 2021 at a reported cost of more than 60 billion yen, and a new Pokémon project was announced this January. Attendance reached about 16 million in both 2023 and 2024, the world’s third highest and the top figure in Japan, but it has leveled off. The park had simply run out of room to add more worlds.

Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama said at his September 1 press conference that, if carried forward well, USJ has the ability and appeal to aim for the world’s highest attendance, and voiced hope that expanding the site would build momentum toward that. The city frames the project as a driver of growth after Expo 2025 and of revitalization across the Osaka Bay Area, where an integrated resort with a casino is also taking shape on Yumeshima. In a statement, the park’s operator, USJ LLC, says it is in discussions with Osaka City on the long-term lease of the site and that it will respond appropriately under the city’s procedures.

What will fill the new zone is still unannounced. If the last 25 years are any guide, it will be something worth lining up for.

The ground next door once made steel for the country. Soon it will be part of a place built around smiles, and Osaka’s next quarter century will have room to begin.

Source: Universal Studios Japan