A rural town located on the south coast of Hokkaido Island, Niikappu, put four of the town's unused municipal elementary school sites on sale on Yahoo Auction[J].    The sites consist of school buildings, swimming pools and teachers' dormitories.   The bid started in the USD21M to USD67M price range.

Because of the declining number of applicants for schools due to the low birthrate, the town government was forced to close seven elementary schools last spring.   The government has been trying to sell all unused facilities to the private sector, but four school sites remained unsold and the government decided to list them on Yahoo Auction.

According to Yahoo Japan[J], these are the first school sites ever listed since the company started handling government items on Yahoo Auction.

via Internet Watch[J] and IT media[J]

See Also:

• Yahoo Auction's Special Coverage: Interesting Items On Bid At The Governmental Items Category[J]
• Niikappu Town Government: We Want Those Who Are Interested In Using Ex-school Sites[J]

[edited by mitcho (Michael Erlewine)]

Author Information  Masaru IKEDA has co-founded several system integration companies and consulting firms in Tokyo. He has been contributing serial columns to nationwide newspapers and IT periodicals, also he's currently serving as tech consultant for several web companies. His biography is here. His private blog is here.

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