Tokyo. The firm of architects whose design for Japan’s new Olympic stadium was scrapped said the ballooning costs that doomed their plan were due partly to an uncompetitive selection of contractors and that warnings about this were ignored.

UK-based Zaha Hadid also said on Tuesday it had initially learned that Japan was going “back to zero” on the stadium plan through news reports, and that it later received a “brief official notice” from the Japan Sport Council (JSC), which owns and runs the stadium, of the decision.

Costs for the New National Stadium, set to be the centerpiece of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, soared to $2.1 billion, nearly twice original estimates, sparking widespread outrage that prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to decide nearly two weeks ago to abandon the Zaha Hadid design.

The company said in a statement, however, that it had worked to reduce cost estimates after its design was selected in an international competition in 2012 and had been approved by the JSC.

It said sharp rises in construction costs in Japan, the need to have the stadium completed by a fixed date and the use of a two-stage tender process, in which the contractor was named before any invitation to submit cost estimates and without any international competition, helped inflate costs.

“Our warning was not heeded that selecting contractors too early in a heated construction market and without sufficient competition would lead to an overly high estimate of the cost of construction,” the statement added.

Officials at the JSC were not immediately able to comment.

The decision to abandon the design for the stadium also meant that key matches in the 2019 rugby World Cup are without a home, damaging Japan’s reputation for organizational prowess, especially in the sporting world.

Original design

Japanese officials have said the original design for the stadium, which will host the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2020 Summer Games, helped Tokyo win the right to host the Olympics in 2013.

But the futuristic design, derided as a bicycle helmet, its vast scale and the two massive arches running the full length of the structure were blamed for the soaring costs, sparking a backlash that threatened to become a political burden for Abe at a delicate time when he was passing other key policies.

The architects said that going back to the drawing board and holding a new design competition, as Japan has said it will do, will not help the fundamental problems and may even worsen things.

“Due to the rising cost of building in Tokyo, further delays and a rushed design process, led by a construction contractor, risk producing a lower standard National Stadium with limited future usage,” the statement said, adding that the company has offered its services to Japan as it reviews plans.

Japan’s Olympics Minister said last week that nothing has been decided about what they want in the new stadium, including its cost. The government says construction is set to begin early next year and finish in 2020.

In the latest in a series of woes to hit the stadium, the Education and Sports Ministry said on Tuesday the official tasked with overseeing construction of the stadium is set to resign in what Education and Sports Minister Hakubun Shimomura called a standard personnel reshuffle.

Japan has already paid out around 5.9 billion yen ($47.62 million) to Hadid, other architects and construction firms, media reports say, with little of that money likely to be recovered.

Reuters

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Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was poised on Friday to announce plans to revise the design of a controversial national stadium, the centerpiece of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, media reports said, after sky-rocketing costs sparked public outrage.

Anger over the stadium, the $2.1 billion price tag of which is almost twice estimates from when Tokyo won the bid for the Summer Games in 2013, has become a liability for Abe as he pushes unpopular defense bills through parliament.

Support for Abe, who returned to office in 2012 pledging to bolster Japan’s defenses and reboot the economy, has slipped to around 40 percent on voter doubts about the legislation. News about the stadium has fed into that discontent.

The stadium, designed by UK-based architect Zaha Hadid and likened to a bicycle helmet, has been slammed as expensive, grandiose and unsuited to its Tokyo site.

“Taking various things into consideration and listening to a variety of opinions, we will take steps to keep this from becoming a burden on the people,” Yoshihide Suga, chief cabinet secretary, told a news conference on Friday.

The government has previously said major cost-cutting changes, including possibly even ditching Hadid’s design and going back to the drawing board, would mean the stadium would not be ready in time to host the Rugby World Cup in 2019.

Abe will make the announcement later on Friday, media said.

The Rugby World Cup will be held in an existing stadium to buy time for more extensive revisions, the reports said.

The stadium was originally estimated to cost 130 billion yen ($1.05 billion), but last month the government confirmed the cost had ballooned to 252 billion yen.

Kyodo news agency said revisions would target a total price tag of 180 billion yen.

Political experts said the move was clearly aimed at bolstering support rates hit by the furor over the security legislation, which includes changes that would allow Japanese troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War Two.

Tens of thousands of ordinary Japanese have protested against the legislation, which was approved by parliament’s lower house on Thursday. Abe says the changes are essential to meet new security challenges, including a rising China.

“It’s pretty blatant,” said Steven Reed, a political science professor at Chuo University. “It’s a wise play, but whether it will work or not is hard to tell.”

Reuters

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