Indoor Type Eyed for Marines’ New Home Baseball Stadium

Chiba, June 3 (Jiji Press)–An indoor option is set to be studied for a new home stadium of the Chiba Lotte Marines, a Japanese professional baseball team, in the city of Chiba, east of Tokyo. In an agreement announced Tuesday over the Marines’ new ballpark replacing their current Zozo Marine Stadium, three parties concerned–the Pacific League team, the Chiba municipal government and Aeon Mall Co.–said that they will consider the option of constructing an indoor stadium. They will work out a basic plan after determining by around March 2027 the feasibility of the indoor stadium option. The new stadium is expected to open around 2034. The municipal government of the Chiba Prefecture capital initially planned to construct an outdoor stadium, but later considered the indoor option at the request of the baseball team. The construction cost for an indoor stadium is expected to total more than 100 billion yen, and how to split the cost will be discussed later. The new stadium will be built at the parking lot of the Makuhari Messe convention center, about 1 kilometer north of Zozo Marine Stadium, which is an outdoor facility. According to a proposed design, a hotel and restaurants will be invited to provide spectators with more places to visit in addition to the stadium. The indoor option is also intended to help visitors avoid heatstroke and prevent games from being canceled due to rain. “We have no choice but to build an indoor stadium for the sake of players and fans,” Genichi Tamatsuka, president of Lotte Holdings Co. and acting owner of the Marines, said at a press conference held in the city of Chiba on Tuesday. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]