20/03/2014
Spring Summer Autumn Winter
Snow
SSAWS, pronounced “zaws” and officially
known as LaLaport Skidome SSAWS, was an
indoor ski slope in Funabashi, Chiba, Japan.
SSAWS is acronym of “Spring Summer Autumn
Winter Snow”.It was constructed by Mitsui at
the cost of US$400 million. It opened on July
15, 1993. The structural height of 100 meters,
width of 100m and a length of 500m it was the
largest indoor ski slope in the world at the
time. The complex had three ski courses —
20.1° for skilled skiers, 15° for intermediate,
and 10° for beginners — and two ski lifts.The
ski slope was designed to break even by 2018
by attracting 1,300,000 visitors yearly, who
would pay ¥4,300 yen (~US$50) for 2 hours of
lift time and spend a total of $70 on average.
However, the opening of the ski slope came
shortly after the popping of the Japanese asset
price bubble and original estimates soon
proved too optimistic, with the number of
visitors dropping from one million in the first
year to 700,000 in the second.With an annual
operating cost of US$40 million, SSAWS
sustained losses averaging US$16.7 million/
year.SSAWS closed on September 30, 2002. In
2003, the structure was demolished to make
way for Japan’s first large-format IKEA store,
which opened on the site on April 24, 2006.
Royal civil