The Shinagawa-Nagoya section of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen (Japan’s maglev line) will have four intermediate stations, in Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano and Gifu prefectures (all names provisional). Three of the four, Hashimoto excepted, are being built on new ground away from existing town centres, and the land around them will reach the market through processes in which a public body releases it: station-plaza construction, land readjustment projects, and solicitations for public-private partnership zones. This report sets out, for each of the four stations, the employment and resident population nearby, the existing accommodation supply and estimated settled ADR, and the timing at which land becomes available to the private sector. It then models a 100-room limited-service hotel in front of each station to estimate how a difference in opening date feeds through to the ADR the project has to achieve.

The conclusions first. One, the median estimated settled ADR within 5km of the four stations falls in a ¥6,800-7,800 band: however different the character of each location, the price level sits where a regional city dominated by business hotels sits. Two, building a 100-room limited-service hotel at the station requires an ADR 1.1-1.5 times the local level even at 2025 construction costs, and that gap is the headroom the maglev opening has to close. Three, pushing the opening back by three years raises the hurdle ADR by roughly ¥1,700-1,900, and most of that comes from construction cost inflation. In Kofu, Iida and Nakatsugawa, where land is cheap, holding the site two years longer costs under ¥10 per room in ADR terms. Deciding which fiscal year to break ground matters far more to project viability than securing the land.

Where the opening date stands – the Shizuoka section cleared to start, and an outlook of “2036 at the earliest”

On 7 July 2026 Shizuoka Governor Yasutomo Suzuki announced that he would allow construction to begin on the Shizuoka section of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen, and on 18 July the prefecture and JR Central concluded the natural-environment conservation agreement required for the main works. Press reports put the work inside Shizuoka at more than ten years, so even with a start before year-end the Shinagawa-Nagoya section would open in 2036 at the earliest (nippon.com, 16 July 2026). On 24 July, meeting transport minister Yasushi Kaneko, JR Central president Shunsuke Niwa said the company wanted to “indicate the opening date within the year” (Chunichi Shimbun, 24 July 2026). Until JR Central publishes a formal opening date, this report likewise treats it as “2036 at the earliest, on the current outlook”.

Work on the intermediate stations is already well defined. Ground was broken at the Yamanashi station on 11 March 2026, with completion scheduled for 10 December 2031. It will run 1,200m, up to 46m wide and 32m high, with a roof covering the whole of its two island platforms and four tracks (Nikkan Kensetsu Kogyo Shimbun). At the Gifu station, delays in land acquisition and a design change to the viaduct pushed the scheduled completion of works back by six years and nine months, from March 2025 to December 2031 (Chunichi Shimbun, 23 December 2024). JR Central reports that, as of the end of March 2026, about 90% of the Shinagawa-Nagoya route length was under contract and about 85% of the land had been acquired (JR Central, Linear Chuo Shinkansen). The station buildings should all take shape around 2031, then wait some five years for the line to open.

What generally happens when an opening slips — whether the cost of continuing to hold land or construction cost inflation weighs more — was examined across four stations on the Hokkaido Shinkansen in an earlier report. Rather than restate that argument in general terms, this report applies it to land prices and land-release timing at the four intermediate stations and puts numbers on it in the modelling below.

Location types of the 4 stations – jobs at Hashimoto, an expressway interchange at Kofu, a terrace at Iida, land readjustment at Nakatsugawa

The four are all “intermediate stations”, yet their locations are entirely different in character. The Kanagawa station is being built underground on the south side of Hashimoto station — served by the JR Yokohama and Sagami lines and the Keio Sagamihara line — on the former site of Aihara High School, which moved out in 2019. It is the only one of the four that connects to an existing terminal. The Yamanashi station sits in Otsu-machi in southern Kofu and does not connect to any conventional rail line. Instead it will be linked by a main avenue to the planned Kofu Chuo Smart Interchange (provisional name) to its north, making it the first case in Japan of a shinkansen or maglev station connecting directly to an intercity expressway interchange. The Nagano station will be an elevated station on the terrace on the west bank of the Tenryu River in Kamisato-Iinuma, Iida, about 1km from Motozenkoji station on the JR Iida line and about 3km from the central district around Iida station. The Gifu station is west of Mino-Sakamoto station on the JR Chuo main line, in Sendanbayashi, Nakatsugawa, where the city is developing about 21.6ha around the station through a land readjustment project.

Source: compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from published materials of JR Central, Sagamihara City, the Urban Renaissance Agency, Kofu City, Iida City and Nakatsugawa City

Jobs and residents around the stations – 168,000 jobs at Hashimoto; Iida and Nakatsugawa lose 10-20% by 2040

As a gauge of how deep hotel demand might be, Table 2 sets the number of workers within 5km of each station alongside the projected resident population within 3km. Workers are compared on a 5km radius, which takes in the commuting catchment, because the new stations sit away from the existing town centres.

Source: compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from the Economic Census for Business Activity (2021), Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and MLIT National Land Numerical Information (projected population by 250m mesh)

Hashimoto, with 167,822 workers within 5km, is far ahead of the other three. Its resident population within 3km also exceeds 190,000 and falls only 2.9% by 2040. A new station is being added on top of an existing depth of Greater Tokyo business and residential activity, which makes an accommodation offer built on business demand straightforward to assemble. Kofu has 73,632 workers within 5km and its 3km resident population is stable, down just 1.9% even by 2040. The surrounding area is one where roadside retail and business cluster around the Kofu-Showa and Kofu-Minami interchanges, so the use in front of the station will be decided by how that business demand is combined with wide-area arrivals off the expressway.

Iida and Nakatsugawa are different in character. Iida’s 3km resident population falls 16.7%, from 34,817 in 2020 to 29,019 in 2040, and its aged share, 33.0% as of 2025, is the highest of the four. Nakatsugawa is projected to fall 12.7%. Demand that relies on the local population will thin out, so accommodation demand depends on how many visitors from outside the area can be captured — tourists in southern Shinshu and the Tono region, corporate facilities along the maglev route. At the same time employment has a certain scale, 35,593 at Iida and 25,296 at Nakatsugawa, so even without a large business district at the station there is demand to be had from extended business stays, construction work and training.

How the resident population declines varies from place to place even around a single station. Figure 3 shows resident population by 250m mesh within 3km of the Nagano station site, where population density clearly differs between the built-up terrace on the Iida station side and the partly agricultural residential area around the station site. For anyone looking for hotel land outside the station plaza itself, plots along the arterial roads a little away from the existing residential area are the realistic candidates.

Estimated settled ADR and existing rooms in nearby cities – around ¥7,000 at all four, ¥14,300 in the hot-spring town of Fuefuki

Looking at estimated settled ADR in the cities around the stations, Kofu is at ¥7,800 (N=35-38 properties), Iida ¥8,000 (N=19-23), Ena ¥8,100 (N=12-14) and Hachioji ¥8,200 (N=12-13): the cities around the intermediate stations cluster near ¥8,000 (Figure 4). Nakatsugawa’s ¥10,900 (N=9-12) runs high because it includes tourist lodgings such as the ryokan of Magome-juku, and it swings widely by month, from ¥7,500 to ¥15,400. Fuefuki, about 8km north-east of the Yamanashi station, is at ¥14,300 (N=47-52) on the strength of Isawa Onsen — a market at nearly double the price sitting inside the same Kofu basin.

Within a 5km radius of each station, accommodation across the four totals 46 properties and 3,943 rooms (major booking site listing basis, hotels and ryokan, excluding leisure hotels and the like), and the median estimated settled ADR falls in a ¥6,800-7,800 band (Table 3). All 11 properties and 1,530 rooms within 5km of Hashimoto are business hotels, the deepest room stock of the four. APA Hotel Sagamihara Hashimoto-Eki Higashi (117 rooms, a rebrand of an existing hotel) was added in September 2025 and KOKO STAY Sagamihara (130 rooms) in December, so supply is already moving ahead of the opening. Within 5km of Kofu, Kai no Hotel (150 rooms) opened in June 2024 and HOTEL R9 The Yard Yamanashi Chuo (42 rooms) that August. Within 5km of Nakatsugawa, AB Hotel Nakatsugawa (121 rooms) opened in November 2024 and Super Hotel Gifu Nakatsugawa Onsen (142 rooms) in December 2025, adding new rooms around the Nakatsugawa interchange on the Chuo Expressway and near the station site. Iida, at 13 properties and 603 rooms, is the smallest of the four, with its properties concentrated in the existing town centre around Iida station.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (major booking site listing basis). Hotels and ryokan are counted; leisure hotels, campsites and whole-house rentals of the private-lodging type are excluded. The 5km radius at Nakatsugawa extends into Ena. Opening dates are based on confirmed booking site listings.

Land prices, too, differ sharply by station. In the 2026 official land price survey, commercial land at 3-chome Hashimoto, close to the Kanagawa station, was ¥715,000 per square metre (+9.8% year on year), up by roughly a tenth.By contrast, industrial land at Otsu-machi about 0.7km from the Yamanashi station was ¥22,600 (+3.7%), commercial land at Kamisato-Kuroda about 1.6km from the Nagano station ¥37,300 (flat), and residential land at Sendanbayashi about 0.5km from the Gifu station ¥30,600 (+1.0%). The gap between Hashimoto and the three regional stations reaches roughly twentyfold, and that gap shows up in the modelling below as the weight of land cost.

Source: compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from the MLIT Real Estate Information Library (official land price survey). Distances are straight-line from each station’s published position.

On the building-plan side, the accommodation projects we record from MLIT’s Building Dynamics Statistics Survey comprise 54 rooms in Fujiyoshida (Yamanashi), 159 rooms in Otari (Nagano), 120 rooms in Minokamo (Gifu) and five projects in Yokohama and Hakone (Kanagawa); none falls near the four intermediate stations. That is a statement about the scope of our records, not evidence that no projects exist. Building confirmation applications are normally filed one to two years before opening, so a station-front accommodation project aiming to open around 2036 would appear in the filings in the early 2030s at the earliest.

How the land comes to market – reserve land, partnership zones, station plazas, and when the private sector gets access

Land in front of the four intermediate stations is organised through projects led by public bodies before any private-to-private sale. For developers and operating companies the points of entry are reserve land and replotted land from land readjustment, partner solicitations for public-private partnership zones, and the introduction of private capital around the station plazas — each announced on a different timetable (Table 5, Figure 5).

Source: compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from published materials of the Urban Renaissance Agency, Sagamihara City, Kofu City, Nikkei BP’s “New Public-Private Partnership Frontline”, Iida City, Chunichi Shimbun and Nakatsugawa City

Set out on a timeline, the order in which land reaches the private sector becomes visible. Earliest is the Gifu station, where land readjustment is due to complete in March 2029, more than two years ahead of the station’s own scheduled completion (December 2031). Once reserve land goes on sale, it may be possible to secure a site before the line opens, together with the “development land” assembled from municipal holdings and strip replotting. At the Yamanashi station, the concept book will be finalised during FY2026 and the solicitation of study partners follows. Kofu City has selected Mori Building as preferred negotiator for work supporting development using a 3D city model and VR of the station area (Kofu City), and forums for discussion among multiple operators and the local community are taking shape. For anyone intending to join the partnership zone, coming in at the study-partner stage in FY2026-2027 is the shortest route to getting accommodation use written into the plan.

At the Kanagawa station, land readjustment is a long project running to FY2035, and development on the replotted blocks is likely to be mixed-use, combining retail, offices and housing. Public comments on the guideline included calls to secure accommodation capacity and to attract a hotel above business-hotel class, and the city lists accommodation, alongside offices, retail and tourism facilities, among the urban functions to be clustered. At the Nagano station, the plaza itself is being built as public space, so accommodation use has to be assembled on private land around it. Part of the plaza and the exchange facility come into use first, in FY2028, which leaves room to test a small accommodation offer alongside the facility’s operation.

Development scenario modelling – a 3-year delay raises the hurdle ADR by about ¥1,700-1,900, most of it construction cost

Here we work backwards to the ADR required to secure a target yield, assuming a 100-room limited-service hotel in front of each station. Two scenarios are compared: A, securing the site in 2031 and opening in 2036, and B, securing the site in 2036 and opening in 2039. A holds the land for five years, B for three. B holds land for less time but shifts construction three years later.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting modelling. Construction unit cost from MLIT’s Building Starts Statistics, construction cost inflation from Turner & Townsend, land prices from the MLIT official land price survey, GOP margin from Invincible Investment Corporation disclosures. This is simplified modelling; an actual investment decision requires a detailed feasibility study.

Three things come out of the modelling. First, even at unchanged 2025 construction costs the hurdle ADR is ¥8,500 at Kofu, Iida and Nakatsugawa and ¥11,400 at Hashimoto, 1.1-1.5 times the median within 5km. A total project cost supportable at the local estimated settled ADR of ¥8,000 works out at about ¥18.7m per room, still short of the 2025-price total project cost at the three regional stations (about ¥19.8m-19.9m per room). Closing that gap, through the rate uplift the maglev opening brings and through choices of format and scale, is the starting point for accommodation development at the intermediate stations.

Second, the difference between A and B is decided almost entirely by construction cost. B’s hurdle ADR is ¥1,700-1,900 higher than A’s. The difference from the land-holding period (A is two years longer) is under ¥10 at Kofu, Iida and Nakatsugawa and only ¥150 at Hashimoto. Even in the sensitivity case holding construction cost inflation to 2.0% a year from 2028, a gap of ¥520-670 remains. At the low-land-cost regional stations, the burden of securing a site early is small, and fixing the construction start date early is what tells on project viability.

Third, Hashimoto alone carries a heavy land cost. Land for a 1,000sqm site costs ¥720m, about 27% of the ¥2.66bn total project cost at 2025 prices. At the three regional stations it is around 2%. At Hashimoto, the main levers for bringing the hurdle ADR down are designs that lighten land cost: how the land is released through replotting, building the hotel into a mixed-use block to limit the land share, and the use of fixed-term leasehold.

Note that scenario A’s 2036 opening is set to the earliest maglev outlook; if the opening slips, building A would be trading on existing business and tourism demand before the line opens. The build period is set at two years with reference to our own measurement of start-to-completion across 67 projects (an average of 1.96 years for standalone accommodation and 4.00 years for mixed-use development) (measured hotel build times). The approach of working back from interest rates to a break-even ADR is covered in policy rate 1.00% and hotel development, and the effect of construction cost inflation on supply in the 2027-2029 hotel opening map.

Conclusion – the format that works divides by station into business, tourism-gateway and wide-area touring

What the four stations have in common is that land emerges in stages through projects led by public bodies, on timetables that range from 2029 to FY2035 depending on the station. What weighs most on project viability, though, is construction cost inflation. Rather than waiting for the line to open, responding early to solicitations and reserve land sales to fix the construction start date — then trading the first few years after opening on existing business and tourism demand as the maglev opening arrives — makes the economics easier to assemble under an outlook of 2036 or later. The opening date JR Central plans to indicate within the year, Kofu City’s concept book and Nakatsugawa City’s reserve land announcement are the next three milestones to watch.

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