IKE・SUNPARK, Tokyo

Why you should experience IKE・SUNPARK in Tokyo, Japan.

IKE・SUNPARK is a forward-looking civic park where Higashi-Ikebukuro's industrial past, disaster-preparedness planning, urban agriculture and twenty-first-century public-space investment converge across the former Tokyo Branch of the Japan Mint.

Set along Hinode-dori near Kasuga-dori and just steps from Sunshine City, the park occupies 1.7 hectares of a former government industrial site redeveloped beside one of Toshima's densely built residential districts. A 6,600-square-meter lawn doubles as an emergency evacuation area, helicopter landing ground and relief-supply base, placing metropolitan disaster infrastructure directly beneath the park's principal recreational space. White-oak firebreak plantings, a deep well, emergency toilets and dedicated water facilities extend that protective system around a landscape also containing inherited trees from the former mint. The result is a major piece of public ground whose lawns, plantings and community programs conceal an unusually sophisticated emergency role within eastern Ikebukuro.

What you should know about IKE・SUNPARK.

IKE・SUNPARK is best known for converting part of the former Tokyo Branch of the Japan Mint into Toshima's largest park and a major disaster-response base for eastern Ikebukuro. The Mint's Tokyo operation moved from Kojimachi to Higashi-Ikebukuro in 1939, beginning a 77-year industrial presence associated with medals and coin production. Plans for relocation gained formal momentum in 2013, opening approximately 3.2 hectares of Mint property to large-scale redevelopment. Toshima City, the Japan Mint and Urban Renaissance Agency signed a basic agreement on April 7, 2015 for redevelopment of the district under a municipal plan adopted the previous October. The Tokyo Branch closed on September 30, 2016 and transferred operations to Saitama, ending the government industrial use that had defined the property since the early Showa period. Urban Renaissance Agency subsequently acquired the 3.2-hectare site and allocated approximately 1.7 hectares to the disaster-prevention park, with other portions assigned to educational development and improvement of nearby wooden-house districts. Construction began in May 2019, the principal open area was completed in July 2020 and the full park followed in December 2020. The conversion replaced a closed industrial compound with Toshima's largest expanse of municipal parkland and retained physical continuity through trees inherited from the Mint, including a Japanese bayberry planted for the Tokyo Branch centenary and Somei-yoshino cherry trees transferred during redevelopment.

Disaster engineering determined much of the park's physical organization. The 6,600-square-meter central lawn accommodates up to 2,500 evacuees immediately after a major emergency, then shifts into helicopter and relief-supply operations as the response progresses. White oaks form a fire-resistant tree belt intended to slow the spread of flames from the dense residential area adjoining the property. A deep well supplies firefighting water, and emergency toilets, stockpile storage, emergency power, disaster cameras, balloon floodlights and stove benches distribute response equipment across the grounds. Public use follows a parallel program built around food production and small-scale enterprise. The IKE・SUNPARK Farmers Market brings produce from growers into the park, KOTO-PORT cabins provide compact premises for new businesses and the community garden uses rainwater and compost produced from fallen leaves. Toshima incorporated the project into its municipal SDGs work, connecting local food distribution and community participation with the same ground reserved for emergency logistics. IKE・SUNPARK consequently joins two municipal systems within a single 1.7-hectare site: routine civic activity prepares the ground, infrastructure and local relationships required when the lawn shifts into disaster-response operations.

How to fold IKE・SUNPARK into your trip.

IKE・SUNPARK works as the anchor for a daytime progression through Japan's first museum devoted specifically to the ancient Near East, a surviving Meiji missionary residence and a cemetery whose ground passed through Tokugawa medicinal cultivation and falconry before becoming a public burial place.

Begin at Ancient Orient Museum, founded as a public-interest foundation in March 1977 and opened on October 5, 1978 under first director Namio Egami. The institution became Japan's first museum specializing in the ancient Near East, developing holdings centered on West Asia and Egypt from the Paleolithic period through the Sasanian era. Approximately 5,000 objects now accompany finds from the museum's overseas archaeological work. Excavations along the Euphrates in Syria began in 1978, followed by work at Tell Mastuma from 1980 through 1995, giving the collection a direct relationship with Japanese archaeological fieldwork in the region. Continue to Zoshigaya Missionary Museum, the 1907 residence built by American missionary John Moody McCaleb. McCaleb lived in the house for 34 years until returning to the United States in 1941, using the property during religious work and early-childhood education in the developing residential district. The wooden Western-style house is Toshima's oldest surviving modern building of its type and one of Tokyo's scarce surviving Meiji missionary residences. Conclude at Zoshigaya Cemetery, whose ground entered Tokugawa institutional use long before its graves appeared. Tokugawa Iemitsu established a medicinal herb garden there in 1638, and Tokugawa Yoshimune converted the property into a facility for falcons used during shogunal hunting in 1719. A pine dating from the falconry period survives within the grounds. Tokyo Prefecture established a communal burial ground there on September 1, 1874, Tokyo City assumed control in 1889 and the Zoshigaya Cemetery name followed in 1935. The progression moves from Japanese archaeological engagement with ancient West Asia through McCaleb's Meiji religious residence into ground successively used for Tokugawa medicine, falconry and metropolitan burial, extending Higashi-Ikebukuro's recent civic redevelopment into deeper institutional histories surrounding it.

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